Never Been Kissed

by M. C. Cerny

  3

  Laurel

  If anything good comes out of this self-isolation, at least I’ll have the cleanest pores of my entire life. As for the laser hair removal I scheduled with my work bonus…I’ll fill my hours of boredom by plucking each little hair out as well as finally master some of those pretzel yoga moves I want to try.

  “Did you really think he was going to show up?” My sister Lavender - yes, my mother named us after herby flowers being the hippie spirit she is - shuffles into my bedroom holding a cup of steaming coffee.

  It’s been radio silence for three days from my Text guy except to cancel our date.

  “That was the plan.” I roll over in bed tossing a pillow over my head wanting to be anywhere else. Pretty sure things couldn’t get worse, but hey, here we are. It’s three days in and I’ve had morning meetings everyday working from home. I’m almost out of clean shirts so I’m thankful no one can see my bottom half.

  “Auntie Slaur!” My niece jumps onto my bed pouncing on me. Hannah is adorable, wild, and going to drive us nuts before things resume any sense of normalcy.

  I love it the way one loves picking out a splinter.

  “Hannah Banana!” I roar rolling over catching her giggling, wriggling body.

  “Did your boyfriend show up?” She asks with the most innocent of intentions.

  “Hannah!” Lavender scowls and shoos her out of my bedroom.

  Flopping back on my bed, I sigh. “I guess I’ll have to go out later and pick up a few things. I wonder how long this thing is going to last.” I pick fuzz off my blanket to distract myself. It’s not working.

  “Who knows. I have a date with Jimmy though.”

  “Lavender, you can’t go out. Social distancing, remember? Keeping the world safe. Flatten the curve.”

  “Oh come on, if we have to stay inside for days on end…” I don’t remind my selfish sex seeking sister that this is for at least two weeks. “I’ll never get laid.”

  “And, I will die a virgin. Yes, I got it. You need dick and I need to pick up the toilet paper. Remind me again, who is older and more responsible.” My eye roll game is hard core.

  “Don’t throw that back in my face. I have a daughter and a business to run.” She sips her coffee obviously over this conversation.

  I look at her, and shake my head with her faulty logic. “You rent a chair at a Cheap Cuts hair salon and left Hannah’s dad before she was born.”

  “My talents are clearly wasted and he was married, now he’s single and ready to mingle.” She cocks her head and crosses her arms like she’s entitled to this date with Jimmie who is Hannah’s woefully absent biological father. I don’t have a way to respond where she’ll see reason, so I don’t. I don’t even point out that Hannah’s dad offered her child support which she turned down.

  “Flowers.” My mother calls to us from the kitchen. Her voice is husky and chipped away from decades of being a smoker. She coughs loudly and I hear her wheeze. I worry about her after the latest medical briefing on the news.

  “Ma?” I pull myself together and walk into the kitchen of our two-bedroom apartment. My room is technically a closet with a window and access to the fire escape. Lavender shares her bedroom with Hannah much to her displeasure and our mother has the master bedroom where she’s hoarded issues of The New Yorker for the last five years since my dad’s death. I happen to like the magazine, I just wish she’s let me recycle it. At this point, it might end up becoming emergency toilet paper if I can’t find any at the store.

  “Are you going to the store?” She inquires.

  “I am. I have a list.” I pass her the folded paper so she can write on it. She pulls out a pen and scribbles on it handing it back.

  “Can you get me some of my flavored sodas? Black Cherry, but not the store brand.”

  I go back into my room and pull out my purse checking my wallet. I have my debit card and some twenties. My paycheck gets deposited tomorrow, but if I need a cab with all the groceries it’s going to dig into my resources on top of my portion of the rent. Part of me wants to grumble, you get what you get and you don’t get upset, but I hold back my temper. It’s my momma and I love her. I’m totally stealing a few sodas and keeping them in a bottom drawer, for just in case.

  “Yeah, sure Momma. I’ll get your soda, the toilet paper, and Hannah’s fruit snacks.”

  “You’re a good girl, Laurel.” Ma pats my cheek and shuffles away to the open window where she has her cigarette resting on an old soap dish. The wind blows in the smoke and I swear I’ll never get the smell out of my hair.

  “I need tampons too. Super. The good ones.” Lavender shouts.

  I roll my eyes. Are there ever any good tampons?

  “Money, please?” I hold out my hand. Lavender doesn’t pay toward anything and while I have a good job at an advertising company, I’m also the only one in the house gainfully employed and supporting the four of us.

  “I’ll catch you next time.” She slaps my hand away and saunters back into her bedroom closing the door. Figures.

  “Can I come with you?” Hannah looks up at me with her baby blue eyes killing me.

  “Sorry Hannah Banana, Auntie has to go to the store alone. Lots of people have a bad cold and I don’t want you to get it, okay.” I soften the reality, no need to scare her.

  “Okay. Make sure you put on your safety costume.” She skips off to the sofa and continues watching her cartoons. I’m waiting for her school to close. One more thing Lavender will inevitably dump on my lap saying I’m a better teacher. I’d be a better mother sometimes except for the whole birth part. I hate downplaying the seriousness of what’s going on, but Hannah is seven and maybe on the autism spectrum. She’s super smart but has trouble with other concepts and I don’t want her upset. It takes forever to calm her back down and I’m barely hanging on as it is.

  I grab my purse, jacket, and a mask I made from a scarf thinking the walk will do me good. I haven’t heard from my Text guy yet, and after last night, I don’t know if I will. We were supposed to meet for the first at a posh bar in midtown. He texted to cancel without an apology. Rejection hurts, but after talking to him online for the last three months this almost hurt worse.

  I wish I never messaged VWkingston.

  4

  Van

  I’m pretty sure I’m catching feelings for Laurel.

  Big words considering what a jackass I’ve been this week. Ignoring her during the video calls and rushing through the assignments with staff. I should have told her from the start it was me, but that would have quashed the last three months all together.

  When I finally figured out that my online girlfriend, thank you IT was Laurel, I hung onto her every word since she pinged me. I stopped dating and fooling around. Last night I was supposed to meet her and finally disclose my identity to her, but I flaked with no apology. My best friend got into it at a bar near my place and I had to bail him out when he called me. He was a shit friend who ruined last night.

  I surmise that Laurel is shy and skittish. She’s smoking hot behind her thick rimmed glasses which she hides behind. Under normal circumstances, I would have never approached her, but her witty comebacks and sensitive soul bled through the phone screen giving me more joy than any woman I’d ever been with.

  Now I’m stuck clear across the city for the foreseeable future. If I told her now, she’d be hurt and angry and I wouldn’t get to talk to her which given the current state of things I couldn’t bear to lose her too. I look down at the message I sent her last night cancelling and contemplate messaging her. The longer I wait, the worse it will be. I bite my lip and hunker down to craft another more suitable apology text. I write three times and erase it just as quickly. She probably thinks I’m flaky as shit. I don’t blame her, but I’ve been dancing to her tune for three months letting her pull the strings on how fast this thing progresses or doesn’t, and now we’re here, stuck, and I can’t even face time her.

  Finally, I compose my mess
age to her.

  VWkingston: Hey sweetheart, I’m really sorry about last night. My buddy got into something and called me to bail him out. It took longer than I realized and I missed you. I really missed you.

  So much for not sounding like an idiot and a tad creepy. I might as well tell her how my heart speeds up when I know she’s in the office and how I’ve stalked her camera roll since IT told me how to remotely check company phones. The phone goes through the motion of showing me several dots popping up. My heart beats in time with the dots.

  FlowerGirl23: What kind of trouble?

  VWkingston: The kind that has me bailing him out.

  I cringe telling her this. She’ll think I’m a deadbeat or a loser. I’m going to kill him once he sobers up.

  FlowerGirl23: I can’t talk long but maybe we could face time since we missed our date?

  Shit.

  She wants to face time. At first, we both avoided it because it was too soon, and then she got skittish and once I realized it was Laurel, I got chickenshit because then she’d know it was me.

  VWkingston: Sure. If that’s what you want.

  I don’t want. At least not yet. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  FlowerGirl23: You don’t sound like you want to. Forget it.

  VWkingston: No! That’s not it. I was hoping we could have met in person that’s all.

  FlowerGirl23: There’s always two weeks from now…

  Yeah, if the order is lifted and if not, then who knows when.

  VWkingston: I get it, you’re mad. Let’s do it. I’m just afraid I won’t meet your expectations that’s all.

  FlowerGirl23: I guess we’ll find out.

  VWkingston: I’ll ping you at 7pm.

  And that’s when my world will truly end.

  5

  Laurel

  Ma is busy cooking something in one pan. Whatever it is, it smells like burnt sauce and pasta. My stomach rolls. Ma hasn’t cared much for cooking and Lavender is whirling between the kitchen and her bedroom. She’s dressed up suspiciously in date clothes.

  “Where are you going?” I pop a cherry tomato into my mouth from the salad. Ma slaps my hand smiling and I grab a second one. The salad is safer than whatever is in her one pan dish, but I’ll eat it anyway.

  “Date.” She fluffs her hair in the mirror.

  “No?”

  Lavender pop out her compact and ignores me applying another layer of bright lipstick that will stain anything it touches.

  “Lav, there’s a stay at home order in place. You can’t go out.”

  “Laurel, I’m meeting Jimmy at his place. It’s no big deal.”

  I corner her in the hall away from little ears. I’m mad. She’s the reason why whatever is happening out there is getting worse plus endangering all of us.

  “You can’t go.” I argue.

  “Oh come on. He ordered take out and he’s lonely.”

  “Yeah, and Ma has early stage COPD, are you crazy?”

  “You’re jealous.” She snaps her lips at me and I scowl back. I’m not jealous, I’m pissed and she’s ignorant. Arguing won’t help, but I don’t know what to do.

  “Are you sure he hasn’t been out?” I don’t know how worried to get about this situation, but the news has been on non-stop.

  “I don’t need you to mother me.” Her hands are on her hips as she tries backing me into the corner where we keep our coats hanging by the door.

  “I’m trying to keep us afloat and you’re ignoring the rules completely. What about Hannah’s asthma.”

  “She has an inhaler.” My older selfish sister dismisses me completely. Hannah hasn’t had an attack in over a year, but I attribute that to me being careful not to her stellar mothering skills.

  “Do me a favor and stay there then. We don’t need you coming home with this thing.”

  “Oh for fucks sake Laurel. Jimmie ordered a chicken pot pie and it’s got to be better then whatever Mama has in that pan.”

  “Are you kidding me? A pot pie is your motivation for putting us at risk?” She’s unbelievable and I’m flabbergasted. Absolutely flummoxed, but that’s Lavender. I’m not even sure she’s built to consider anyone but herself since she had Hannah and gave up what she considers the best years of her life. I just hope she figures herself out before Hannah catches on because I know deep down she loves that little girl even if she feels jilted by her baby daddy.

  “Hey we’re supporting a small business. Pete’s Potpie shack has been around since 1940.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I highly doubt this is what they meant by social distancing.”

  “No.” She drawls smiling and twirling her hair that hasn’t seen its original color since her high school cosmetology class. “I’m going for the chicken and the dicken.”

  The what?

  “Unbelievable.” I mutter as she escapes out the door and the fire alarm goes off simultaneously. I turn to check out what’s going on and when I glance back, Lavender is long gone. At least someone around here is having fun, I guess.

  Dinner is uneventful and tasteless. No one expresses concern with where Lavender took off to so I scrape the leftovers into the trash before Marley can eat them. I help Hannah read a book and tuck her into bed while my mother smokes out the window. It’s no different than any other night except I’m filled with a combination of dread and anxiety.

  I’m not going out, but I am meeting someone.

  I think I'm in love with a man I've never met. For all I know, he could be King Kong, or the weird guy in the front cubicle with an overbite. What I do know is that he wants to Skype tonight and I'm nervous as heck praying my top doesn’t have pit stains.

  My computer pings and I force myself to get up from my twin bed with cat sheets that have been rotated in with Barbie, and unicorns since high school and since Hannah was born. I’m not picky and since I wasn’t having boyfriends over, it didn’t really matter.

  But with the webcam I set up…well, that was about to change things. I tuck my plain comforter over the sheets. No need to share that level of weirdness yet.

  My stomach rolls. I don’t know what to expect.

  The screen lights up and I see a man, or most of him. His face is covered by a piece of paper with the words: Don’t hang up written in bold marker.

  “Ummm?” I try to see around it but it’s ridiculous. We’re separated by a screen.

  “Please don’t hang up.” He says.

  “Van?” Over the past few months he’s told me his name.

  “It’s me Laurel, but I have some explaining to do.”

  I lean back blowing out a breath. “I’m not going to like this am I?”

  “Eh, I guess it depends on what you were hoping for.”

  “You’re a guy, so I guess that’s a minimum.” I retort. Has a dick and job? I suppose those were higher standards than my sister.

  He laughs and the paper shakes teasing me.

  “Oh come on. How bad could it be?”

  “Sweetheart, remember don’t hang up.” My heart warms like a butterball and puddles into the edge of my twin bed I use as a chair for my desk.

  “Okay. Fine.”

  The paper lowers slowly. His hair comes into view, dark and wavy. The paper lowers again and I see arched thick eye brows and deep blue eyes that look vaguely familiar. The paper is about halfway and my curiosity is ravenous. He keeps going, but time seems to slow as the face comes into focus and I realize who this man is. The man I’ve been having online flirtatious conversations with…

  My boss.

  Donovan Ward.

  And now things become clear.

  Crystal clear.

  So freaking clear I feel my heart pound so loud it blocks my hearing at first.

  “Laurel.” His voice is one I recognize. His slight husky almost Scottish accent that makes me think he’s been drinking whiskey all day long or smoking cigars which I know he doesn’t do.

  “Mr. Ward.” I choke the words out unsure what to do. Will I get fir
ed? Will we or rather I get in any trouble? My chest burns with acid reflux over this discovery and I bite my thumbnail even though I know touching my face is off-limits. But it’s my face and my house so at the moment I don’t care.

  Yup.

  I’m going to get sick and then die from biting my nail. That’s what’s going to finally do me in. No speeding bus or casual mugging in the park, my damn thumbnail.

  “Oh no, please don’t call me that.”

  “But you’re you. You’re my boss.” Floundering, I get up from my bed because it butts up against my desk and my closet sized room doesn’t even have space for a chair. And then I realize he can pretty much see my room. The whole thing, less than six square feet of it because it’s really a generous sized closet.

  “I’m the company owner, but I’m not your direct boss.”

  My eyes narrow. “I don’t think that makes me feel any better.”

  “Right. I guess not.” He runs a hand through his glossy Clark Kent like hair. “Well, still, call me Van. Please?”

  It’s hard to deny him much of anything when he looks at me like I’m everything.

  “Van.” I parrot his name, but it doesn’t alleviate my anxiety in the slightest.

  He winces. “I wanted to tell you sooner.”

  “Sooner.” Meaning, he’s known for quite some time. My face goes hot and sweat beads between my breasts itching. “How long have you known?”

  He winces again. “Almost from the beginning.” I take it back. He’s no Clark Kent, he might as well be Lex Luthor in his deception and I feel like a colossal idiot.