When he came home, he discovered that Malcolm and Colleen had already gone to bed. He went to his room and listened to some of his records for about twenty minutes. Then he turned off the stereo and did something he would have never done yesterday. He went into the kitchen and called Page’s house.
“Hello?” an annoyed voice said. It was Page. “Don’t you know it’s ten o’clock at night?”
“Yeah, I know. Can I talk to my sister please?”
“Why?”
“I have to tell her something important.”
“Like what?”
“It’s none of your business. Just put her on the phone.”
“What if I don’t?”
Ben sighed.
“All right. She’s standing right here so I guess I’ll let her talk to you.”
“Hello?” Gennie said. She sounded defensive.
“Hi, Gennie,” Ben replied, trying to be as casual as possible. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Gennie said. “Why are you calling me? I thought I was the scum of the earth.”
“Uh…well…I didn’t mean any of things I said to you a few months ago. And, uh…I’m sorry for hurting you. I’ve wanted to apologize for a while, but I felt so embarrassed and it was never a good time. I don’t know if you’re still mad or not, but…I understand if you are.”
Gennie didn’t say anything for a while.
“I’m not mad,” she finally said. “Just hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll never hit you again, I promise.”
“I can’t be who you want me to be.”
“That’s okay. Who gives a crap what I think?”
Gennie chuckled.
“Well, I started it. And I was a pain in the ass. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Ben said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I miss you,” Gennie replied.
“I miss you too,” Ben said.
“Let’s forget about what happened,” Gennie said.
“Oh, okay,” Ben replied. He didn’t think she would forgive him that easily, but he was relieved. “I was wondering...have you seen Foster since Saturday night?”
“Yeah, actually I went over his house yesterday. He showed me his car, and then we went out for ice cream. It went really good.”
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“It.”
“No! I hardly know the guy.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I want to tell you something. Charlene and I went out today after school.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be dating Barbara?”
“She isn’t interested in me. We had to pick her up to drive her across the street to the beach. She took this itsy little bikini with her and it was obvious she was meeting a guy there. When we went to her house to pick her up, she yelled at us and told Charlene to kick me out.”
“Well, that sounds like love at first sight.”
“I’m glad she’s not interested in me, because now I can pay attention to Charlene.”
Gennie sighed.
“When we went back to her house after dropping Barbara off, we were rehearsing for the play. Right in the middle of it, we started kissing and couldn’t stop.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“We made out on her bed and we went all the way.”
“You used a rubber, right?”
“No, I didn’t buy any because I didn’t know I was going to be making out with Charlene.”
“What if she gets pregnant?”
Ben never thought of that. “She won’t get pregnant. She’s probably on the pill or something.”
“Probably? You didn’t ask her?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that at the time.”
“You should have been.”
Ben had forgotten what a party pooper Gennie could be.
“I’ll tell you what…if she gets pregnant, I’ll marry her, no questions asked.”
“What about Johnny? Is she still going out with him?”
“Well, she told me she doesn’t even like Johnny. I asked her if she would break up with him and go out with me and she said she would think about it.”
“I wouldn’t go to school tomorrow if I were you.”
“I don’t care what Johnny thinks because I have something I can use against him.”
“Like what? He’s Mr. Perfect.”
“No, actually he’s Mr. Impotent.”
Gennie giggled. “No way!”
“If he threatens me, I’ll just tell him that I’ll release his little secret to the whole school.”
“Well okay,” Gennie said. “I’m still worried for you though. And I don’t know if Charlene really likes you, but you’ve gone farther with her I thought you would have. So I guess you won.”
He decided to tell Gennie something he should have told her sooner. “Would you like to move back in? Colleen and Malcolm miss you, plus it’s really creepy how quiet it is at night.”
“You’re not scared, are you?”
“No, I’m not scared at all.”
“Yeah, right,” Gennie said.
Chapter 25: May 5
What They Left Behind Page 24
