Where the Kissing Never Stops (6 page)

“But you two…” My mouth opened and closed. I looked like a hungry fish.

“Made love?”

This conversation was going from bad to worse. My stomach growled. There was that hunger again. Oh, for a Twinkie the size of a Ford.

“Okay, look,” I said quickly. “He asked me if I knew about sex and I said yes.”

“That was it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where did this orgy of intimacy take place?”

“I don’t remember, exactly — the mall, maybe.”

“Your father told you about the facts of life in the mall?”

“What’s the difference where he told me? He told me; isn’t that what you want to hear? And it took a long time, too. We talked a lot.”

“Your father loved you, Walker, but he never talked a lot in his life. Now that he’s gone, at least don’t kid yourself. Whenever you wanted anything, you asked me, remember? Then I waited for the right moment and asked him. You couldn’t do anything direct with your father, you know that. He was like some rare animal. If you rushed up to him yelling and waving your arms, he’d be gone in a flash. So I just tiptoed around until everything was just right and then I’d put my hand out and pet him. That’s how I got your ten-speed, that’s how I made it okay for you to use the car and to decorate your room with the Hottie of the Month.”

“I took those down.”

“It was always that way, sweetheart,” she said relentlessly. “Don’t pretend it was different.”

I could feel the corners of my mouth turn down and start to quiver. “Why didn’t you get a divorce if everything was so horrible?”

“But it wasn’t.”

“What’d you guys have in common, then? It sure wasn’t long talks about who said what to your son.”

She began to tick items off her list, snapping a finger up for each one. “We liked to travel and we did, especially before you were born. We liked to buy expensive wines and compare them. We both wanted to live close to a big city but not in it. We wanted to have one child, no more. We liked to cook…” She stopped to sigh.

“God, we had the nicest times in the kitchen, never saying a word — just chopping and grating and tasting. Your dad put fresh ginger in everything.” She looked at me, her eyes misting over like windows in the winter. “I can’t even keep it in the house anymore. And if I’m out somewhere and I smell it, I think my heart is just going to…” She stood up. “Well, I just have to leave, that’s all.”

The phone rang and we both looked toward the living room.

“Now, who can that be?” she said.

I waited to see if it could possibly be for me, maybe Sully with some midnight insight, then I heard Mom say, “Oh, hi,” so I looked in the refrigerator and scarfed about half a package of cheese and some leftover pizza.

Boy, it was sure getting strange around the house, all those secrets coming out. It made me feel weird to realize that I didn’t really know my dad. Who had I loved? And who did I miss? It was like that old quiz show he used to watch on cable, the one where people lied about who they were. Will the real father please stand up?

“It was Wanda,” Mom said. “She’s got the flu for sure and wants me to come in a little early tomorrow night.”

“Wanda?”

“The Wildcat. I don’t know why I have to be early just because she’s sick.”

“Wanda the
Wildcat
?”

“Look,” Mom said brusquely. “I started this talk so I could be sure that when you decide to make love with someone you’ll know everything you need in order to make careful and considerate choices.” She took one of my hands in hers. “Okay? Does that make sense?”

“I guess. It just sounds funny coming from a stripper.” I’m afraid I pretty much spit out the last word.

Just before, my mom and I had been like two ice cubes left out in the sink, slowly melting, slowly trickling toward each other. Then bam! Right back in the freezer.

Mom sighed. I looked down at my shoes. Of course I should have apologized, but I couldn’t seem to get the words out.

She turned back to her magazine; I was about to escape to my room.

“Just a minute. Remember this?” She held the lawyer’s letter at arm’s length, head back, nose in the air. “I want you to look this land over, and I want you to do it tomorrow.”

“God, what do I know about —”

“Go look at it. Make sure there’s not an oil well out there that we don’t know about. Just do what your father used to do.”

Well, I thought, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. I could call Rachel; maybe she’d ride out with me.

“And don’t call your little girlfriend, either, at least not now. It’s late and you’ll wake up her parents.”

“She doesn’t have parents,” I said. “She’s like me.”

“Half an orphan? Poor baby. When do I get to meet this foundling?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like you’re home all the time, is it?”

Boy, who knows where those crappy sentences come from? Right out of nowhere. And then they’re out and it’s too late.

Mom took a swallow of her wine, stared out the window, and sighed again, heavier this time. I just stood there feeling like a lot less than two cents. Then I turned and went up the hall to my room.

After a few minutes I thought that I should just go back out to the kitchen and tell Mom I was sorry, but I didn’t. So I hoped that she would come to the door, knock softly, and tell me that she was quitting to become the manager of a candy plant.

I lay there waiting for the obviously impossible. All I heard was the water running, the toilet flushing, the ghostly crawl of her slippers on the green carpet, and the sound of her door closing.

“We saw you at the concert, Walkman. Are you getting into that new girl’s designer jeans?”

It was Tommy Thompson, lurking outside the cafeteria with his henchmen. Tommy was good looking, if you like those Hitler Youth types. And his father was rich. So girls just naturally ran after him.

But he could be a real jerk, too, as Peggy could have testified. Seeing him with his buddies was like looking at an exhibition in the natural history museum: The Stages of Man. At the top was Tommy — blond and clear-eyed, the ultimate predator. Then there were the intermediate stages: Vince Babbit and Tony DeLong, guys who slumped a lot and sometimes had trouble getting the wrapper off a Snickers. And at the bottom was Art Forney. Built like a big toe, he always breathed through his mouth and looked like he cut his own hair with broken glass.

“Chain your bodyguards,” I said. “Let’s just you and me, Thompson.”

I knew he’d never do it.

“Where’s your boyfriend Sully, you fat faggot?”

Sticks and stones. In one sentence I’m plundering Rachel and in the next bisexual, at least. What an all-round guy.

Tommy and I naturally gave each other the finger and that was that. I began to look for Rachel, but didn’t run into her until after sixth period. We saw each other at the same time and both of us waved big slow waves like we were underwater. As usual, she was dressed up and then some. If we’d been Indians, her name would have been Many Clothes. And mine? He Who Lives In Pantry.

“I had a nice time the other night,” she said, hugging her books to her breasts, or where her breasts probably were. Her sweater was decorated with a noughts and crosses grid and there were two huge
O’
s in just about the right place.

“I was wondering,” I began, but stopped short when she turned to wave at someone and shout, “C-plus if I’m lucky.” Then she apologized immediately.

“I’m sorry, Walker, I’m a little hyper. School can make me really nervous.”

“I was going to ask if you’d drive out and look at this land my dad left me. You being a developer’s daughter and all, I thought maybe you could give me some advice.”

“About what?”

“Whatever,” I said lamely.

“Today?” She leaned, looking for her watch, which was partly lost among books and folders.

“It wouldn’t take long. I mean, what’s out there? Dirt, right?”

“I was sort of planning to go to the mall. And then I’ve got to run some errands for my dad.”

“What if we went to the mall together first and then on out to the other side of town?”

“You’d go to Westgate with me?” she asked happily. “I thought you didn’t like malls.”

“I haven’t been in a long time. Maybe it’s changed. Or maybe I was wrong.”

It’s funny how people can’t simply tell each other the truth. I just wanted to see Rachel and be with her. Why didn’t I say that?

Were we already like my mom and dad, who didn’t communicate unless they were cooking? Or was this communication, after all, like in English class where you looked underneath the cold words on the page to find the warm ones?

When we got to the Saturn, Rachel patted the dashboard and said, “This is okay.”

“What is?”

“Your car.”

“My mom’s car, you mean.”

“It’s nice.”

“Your nose is going to grow.”

“Well, I’ve never been in one like it.”

“You could say that about a wheelbarrow.”

“I don’t care about cars and stuff like that.”

I was glad for that bit of news.

“Give me a minute by myself, okay?” Immediately she started doing some kind of breathing exercises, huffing and puffing. I looked around, grateful that none of the other kids could see. Maybe Debbie hadn’t been the most stimulating companion in history, but she at least breathed like a normal person and not the Big Bad Wolf.

“I went to a stress clinic once,” she explained. “I guess almost nobody gets enough oxygen.”

“Too bad you can’t just eat oxygen; I’d always have enough.”

She grinned and began to pant again, then stopped abruptly. “Sully’s pretty smart, isn’t he?”

“Brilliant, I guess. When we started high school, we took all these tests and he did some unheard-of thing like getting everything right. The teachers all but put up a shrine.”

“I feel really out of it in these accelerated classes.”

“It must be hard going from school to school like you do.”

“I didn’t mind moving, at least not at first.” She turned to me, pressing one invisible breast against the torn upholstery. “Did I tell you how my mom died?”

I shook my head.

“Shopping. Can you believe it? It turns out she had this congenital heart problem that nobody knew about. It made me think that if she had it, maybe I had it, too, and I’d just die sometime without ever being sick or anything. It made me want to not wait for anything, so after Mom passed away, Dad started his own company and we traveled. I’m sixteen and I’ve been to London and Rome and I’ve lived in New York and Miami and Santa Barbara. I’ve done just about everything a girl my age can do.”

“Okay,” I said soothingly. “I believe you.”

“Sorry. Look, would it be okay if we didn’t talk for a little bit? I can calm myself down sometimes if I just sit still and imagine some really pretty place.”

Had just talking made her that nervous or was it something I’d done? Jesus, at this rate I’d have to call the 24-Hour Crisis Hot line.

“I can’t decide,” she said, opening her eyes and frowning, “whether to vizualize Peachtree Plaza or Ghirardelli.” She turned to me eagerly. “Dad and I were in San Francisco last year, and we got to go to Ghirardelli way before it opened. God, Walker, it was gorgeous.” Then she nodded her head decisively. “That’s it, then. California, here I come.”

As I drove and she breathed evenly beside me, I had a little meditation of my own. She’d said, “I’ve done just about everything a girl my age can do.” Did that mean she wasn’t a virgin? And what if she wasn’t? And what if she was? Would I like her less? More?

I knew how Sully felt. He had to marry a beautiful girl who had been reared by nuns, one stamped for approval by his father. She also had to be sexy out of her mind but attracted only to him, like a laser that scorched his bedroom, leaving the rest of the neighborhood intact.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt. Everyone knew it was okay for girls to want to make love and even to want to as much as boys. Everyone said so: Oprah, Dr. Ruth, even Dear Abby.

So it was okay, but was Rachel like that? Just because it was okay didn’t mean everybody had to be that way.

Was I like that? I was horny all the time, but with Debbie, neither of us had seriously considered going to bed together. We’d just kissed for a few weeks and then, with her gripping my one hand with both of hers like she was holding back a poisoned dagger, I’d touched her breast. But that was it; that was the little dance we did.

Still, that was a long time ago, almost a year. I’d only been fifteen then. For adults, a year or two can’t mean that much. At thirty-seven a person is just about the same as he was at thirty-five. But at sixteen, a kid is nothing like the fourteen-year-old he was. He’s outgrown all his clothes again, cut his hair five different ways, and changed his mind a thousand times.

I guess I’d known who I was back in the Dark Ages of Early Adolescence, but who was I now? And who was this girl beside me?

We crossed the crowded parking lot hand in hand like Jack and Jill, strolling along like the asphalt was a country road and the concrete steps a grassy slope. Once inside the big doors, Rachel took a deep breath, opening her arms like someone greeting the sunrise. She had on a mostly black outfit and looked like a Druid.

“Isn’t it great?” she asked.

“Who builds these things, anyway?”

“Developers.” She’d wandered over to the railing and was looking down on the first level. “You and I could build if we had the money and the concept and the zoning. C’mon.”

She held out one hand but when I reached, she’d moved, so she caught my wrist. We walked that way for a few yards, acting, I guess, like we’d planned it. I wondered if anybody would think I’d been nabbed for shoplifting, or worse, that I needed to be led everywhere because my IQ was smaller than my waist size.

She inhaled deeply. “Doesn’t it smell just great?”

“If you like caramel corn and polyester.”

“I know. And perfume and leather and…”

“You really like this place, don’t you?”

“Walker, I swear to God, I love it. Don’t you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“All I know is, a mall can really mellow me out. Who needs Valium when you’ve got all this?”