by Jenny Han
My mother and Susannah had left early that morning for one of their art gallery trips to Dyerstown, and Conrad, thank God, had left for work already. Jeremiah was still asleep. The house was mine.
The idea of tanning sounds so fun in theory. Laying out, soaking up sun and sipping on soda, falling asleep like a fat cat. But then the actual act of it is kind of tedious
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and boring. And hot. I would always rather be floating in an ocean, catching sun that way, than lying down sweating in the sun. They say you get tanner faster when you're wet, anyhow.
But that morning I had no choice. In case Cam called, I mean. So I lay there, sweating and sizzling like a piece of chicken on a grill. It was boring, but it was a necessity.
Just after ten, the phone rang. I sprang up and ran into the kitchen. "Hello?" I said breathlessly.
"Hi, Belly. It's Mr. Fisher."
"Oh, hi, Mr. Fisher," I said. I tried not to sound too disappointed.
He cleared his throat. "So, how's it going down there?"
"Pretty good. Susannah's not home, though. She and my mom went to Dyerstown to visit some galleries." "I see. ... How are the boys?"
"Good ..." I never knew what to say to Mr. Fisher. "Conrad's at work and Jeremiah's still asleep. Do you want me to wake him up?"
"No, no, that's all right."
There was this long pause, and I scrambled to think of something to say.
"Are you, um, coming down this weekend?" I asked.
"No, not this weekend," he said. His voice sounded really far away. "I'll just call back later. You have fun, Belly."
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I hung up the phone. Mr. Fisher hadn't been down to Cousins once yet. He used to come the weekend after the Fourth, because it was easier getting away from work after the holiday. When he came, he'd fire up the barbecue all weekend long, and he'd wear his apron that said chef knows best . I wondered if Susannah would be sad he wasn't coming, if the boys would care.
I trudged back to my lounge chair, back to the sun. I fell asleep on my lounge chair, and I woke up to Jeremiah sprinkling Kool-Aid onto my stomach. "Quit it," I said grouchily, sitting up. I was thirsty from my extra sweet Kool-Aid (I always made it with double sugar), and I felt dehydrated and sweaty.
He laughed and sat down on my lounge chair. "Is this what you're doing all day?"
"Yes," I said, wiping off my stomach and then wiping my hand on his shorts.
"Don't be boring. Come do something with me," he ordered. "I don't have to work until tonight."
"I'm working on my tan," I told him.
"You're tan enough."
"Will you let me drive?"
He hesitated. "Fine," he said. "But you have to rinse off first. I don't want you getting my seat all oily."
I stood up, throwing my limp greasy hair into a high ponytail. "I'll go right now. Just wait," I said.
Jeremiah waited for me in the car, with the AC on full
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blast. He sat in the passenger seat. "Where are we going?" I asked, getting into the driver's seat. I felt like an old pro. "Tennessee? New Mexico? We have to go far so I can get good practice."
He closed his eyes and laid his head back. "Just take a left out of the driveway," he told me.
"Yessir," I said, turning off the AC and opening all four windows. It was so much better driving with the windows down. It felt like you were actually going somewhere.
He continued giving me directions, and then we pulled up to Go Kart City. "Are you serious?"
"We're gonna get you some driving practice," he said, grinning like crazy.
We waited in line for the cars, and when it was our turn, the guy told me to get in the blue one. I said, "Can I drive the red one instead?"
He winked at me and said, "You're so pretty, I'd let you drive my car."
I could feel myself blush, but I liked it. The guy was older than me, and he was actually paying me attention. It was kind of amazing. I'd seen him there the summer before, and he hadn't looked at me once.
Getting into the car next to me, Jeremiah muttered, "What a freaking cheeseball. He needs to get a real job."
"Like lifeguarding is a real job?" I countered.
Jeremiah scowled. "Just drive."
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Every time my car came back around the track, the guy waved at me. The third time he did it, I waved back.
We rode around the track a bunch of times, until it was time for Jeremiah to go to work.
"I think you've had enough driving for today," Jeremiah said, rubbing his neck. "I'll drive us home."
I didn't argue with him. He drove home fast, and dropped me off at the curb and headed to work. I stepped back into the house feeling very tired and tan. And also satisfied.
"Someone named Cam called for you," my mother said. She was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper with her horn-rimmed reading glasses on. She didn't look up.
"He did?" I asked, covering my smile with the back of my hand. "Well, did he leave a number?"
"No," she said. "He said he'd call back."
"Why didn't you ask for it?" I said, and I hated the whininess in my voice, but when it came to my mother, it was like I couldn't help it.
That's when she looked at me, perplexed. "I don't know. He wasn't offering it. Who is he anyway?"
"Forget it," I told her, walking over to the refrigerator for some lemonade.
"Suit yourself," my mother said, going back to her paper.
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She didn't press the issue. She never did. She at least could have gotten his number. If Susannah had been down here instead of her, she would have been singsongy and she would have teased and snooped until I told her everything. Which I would have, gladly.
"Mr. Fisher called this morning," I said.
My mother looked up again. "What did he say?"
"Nothing much. Just that he can't come this weekend."
She pursed her lips, but she didn't say anything.
"Where's Susannah?" I asked. "Is she in her room?"
"Yes, but she doesn't feel well. She's taking a nap," my mother said. In other words, Don't go up and bother her.
"What's wrong with her?"
"She has a summer cold," my mother said automatically.
My mother was a terrible liar. Susannah had been spending a lot of time in her room, and there was a sadness to her that hadn't been there before. I knew something was up. I just wasn't completely sure what.
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chapter twenty -three
Cam called again the next night, and the night after that. We talked on the phone twice before we met up again, for, like, four or five hours at a time. When we talked, I lay on one of the lounge chairs on the porch and stared up at the moon with my toes pointed toward the sky. I laughed so hard that Jeremiah yelled out his window for me to keep it down. We talked about everything, and I loved it, but the whole time I wondered when he was going to ask to see me again. He didn't.
So I had to take matters into my own hands. I invited Cam to come over and play video games and maybe swim. I felt like some kind of liberated woman calling him up and inviting him over, like it was the kind of thing I did all the time. When really, I was only doing it because I knew no one was going to be at home. I
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didn't want Jeremiah or Conrad or my mother or even Susannah to see him just yet. For now, he was just mine.
"I'm a really good swimmer, so don't be mad when we race and I beat you," I said over the phone.
He laughed and said, "At freestyle?"
"At any style."
"Why do you like to win so much?"
I didn't have an answer for that, except to say that winning was fun, and anyway, who didn't like to win? Growing up with Steven and spending my summers with Jeremiah and Conrad, winning was always important, and doubly so because I was a girl and was never expected to win anything. Victory is a thousand times sweeter when you're the underdog.
Cam came over, and I w
atched from my bedroom window as he drove up. His car was navy blue and old and beat-up looking, like his hoodie that I was already planning on keeping. It looked like exactly the kind of car he'd drive.
He rang the doorbell, and I flew down the stairs to open the door. "Hi," I said. I was wearing his hoodie.
"You're wearing my hoodie," he said, smiling down at me. He was even taller than I'd remembered.
"You know, I was thinking that I want to keep it," I told him, letting him in and closing the door behind me. "But I don't expect to get it for free. I'll race you for it."
"But if we race, you can't be mad if I beat you," he
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said, raising an eyebrow at me. "It's my favorite hoodie, and if I win, I'm taking it." "No problem," I told him.
We went out to the pool through the back screen door, down the porch steps. I threw off my shorts and T-shirt and his hoodie quickly, without even thinking-- Jeremiah and I raced all the time in the pool. It didn't occur to me to be self-conscious to be in a bikini in front of Cam. After all, we spent the whole summer in bathing suits in that house.
But he looked away quickly and took off his T-shirt. "Ready?" he said, standing by the edge.
I walked over next to him. "One full lap?" I asked, dipping my toe into the water.
"Sure," he said. "You want a head start?"
I snorted. "Do you want a head start?"
"Touche," he said, grinning.
I'd never heard a boy say "touché" before. Or anyone else, for that matter. Maybe my mother. But on him it looked good. It was different.
I won the first race easily. "You let me win," I accused.
"No, I didn't," he said, but I knew it wasn't true. In all the summers and all of the races, no boy, not Conrad or Jeremiah or certainly not Steven, had ever let me win.
"You better give it your all this time," I warned. "Or I'm keeping the hoodie."
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"Best two out of three," Cam said, wiping the hair out of his eyes.
He won the next heat, and I won the last one. I wasn't fully convinced that he didn't just let me win--after all, he was so tall and long, his one stroke was worth two of mine. But I wanted to keep the hoodie, so I didn't challenge the win. After all, a win was a win.
When he had to leave, I walked him to his car. He didn't get in right away. There was this long pause, the first we'd had, if you can believe it. Cam cleared his throat and said, "So this guy I know, Kinsey, is having a party tomorrow night. Do you maybe want to come?"
"Yeah," I said right away. "I do."
I made the mistake of mentioning it at breakfast the next morning. My mother and Susannah were grocery shopping. It was just me and the boys, the way it had been for the most part this summer. "I'm going to a party tonight," I said, partly just to say it out loud and partly to brag.
Conrad raised his eyebrows. "You?"
"Whose party?" Jeremiah demanded. "Kinsey s?"
I put down my juice. "How'd you know?"
Jeremiah laughed and wagged his finger at me. "I know everybody in Cousins, Belly. I'm a lifeguard. That's like being the mayor. Greg Kinsey works at that surf shop over by the mall."
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Frowning, Conrad said, "Doesn't Greg Kinsey sell crystal meth out of his trunk?"
"What? No. Cam wouldn't be friends with someone like that," I said defensively.
"Who's Cam?" Jeremiah asked me.
"That guy I met at Clay's bonfire. He asked me to go to this party with him, and I said yes."
"Sorry. You aren't going to some meth addict's party," Conrad said.
This was the second time Conrad was trying to tell me what to do, and I was sick of it. Who did he think he was? I had to go to this party. I didn't care if there was crystal meth or not, I was going. "I'm telling you, Cam wouldn't be friends with someone like that! He's straight edge."
Conrad and Jeremiah both snorted. In moments like these, they were a team. "He's straight edge?" Jeremiah said, trying not to smile. "Neat."
"Very cool," agreed Conrad.
I glared at the both of them. First they didn't want me hanging out with meth addicts, and then being straight edge wasn't cool either. "He doesn't do drugs, all right? Which is why I highly doubt he'd be friends with a drug dealer."
Jeremiah scratched his cheek and said, "You know what, it might be Greg Rosenberg who's the meth dealer. Greg Kinsey's pretty cool. He has a pool table. I think I'll check this party out too."
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"Wait, what?" I was starting to panic.
"I think I'll go too," Conrad said. "I like pool."
I stood up. "You guys can't come. You weren't invited."
Conrad leaned back in his chair and put his arms behind his head. "Don't worry, Belly. We won't bother you on your big date."
"Unless he puts his hands on you." Jeremiah ground his fist into his hand threateningly, his blue eyes narrow. "Then his ass is grass."
"This isn't happening," I moaned. "You guys, I'm begging you. Don't come. Please, please don't come."
Jeremiah ignored me. "Con, what are you gonna wear?
"I haven't thought about it. Maybe my khaki shorts? What are you gonna wear?" "I hate you guys," I said.
Things had been weird with me and Conrad and also with me and Jeremiah--an impossible thought crept its way into my head. Was it possible they didn't want me with Cam? Because they, like, had feelings for me? Could that even be? I doubted it. I was like a little sister to them. Only, I wasn't.
When I finished getting ready and it was almost time to go, I stopped by Susannah's room to say good-bye. She and my mother were holed up in there sorting through old pictures. Susannah was all ready for bed, even though
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it was still pretty early. She had her pillows propped up around her, and she was wearing one of her silk robes that Mr. Fisher had bought her on a business trip to Hong Kong. It was poppy and cream, and when I got married, I wanted one just like it.
"Come sit down and help us put this album together," my mother said, rifling through an old striped hatbox.
"Laurel, can't you see she's all dressed up? She's got better things to do than look at dusty old pictures." Susannah winked at me. "Belly, you look fresh as a daisy. I love you in white with your tan. It sets you off like a picture frame."
"Thanks, Susannah," I said.
I wasn't all that dressed up, but I wasn't in shorts like the night of the bonfire. I was wearing a white sundress and flip-flops, and I'd put my hair in braids while it was still wet. I knew I'd probably take them out in about half an hour because they were so tight, but I didn't care. They were cute.
"You do look lovely. Where are you headed?" my mother asked me.
"Just to a party," I said.
My mother frowned and said, "Are Conrad and Jeremiah going to this party too?"
"They're not my bodyguards," I said, rolling my eyes. "I didn't say they were," my mother said. Susannah waved me off and said, "Have fun, Belly!"
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"I will," I said, shutting the door before my mother could ask me any more questions.
I'd hoped that Conrad and Jeremiah had just been kidding around, that they weren't really gonna try to come. But when I ran down the stairs to meet Cam's car, Jeremiah called out, "Hey, Belly?"
He and Conrad were watching TV in the family room. I poked my head in the doorway. "What?" I snapped. "I'm kind of in a hurry."
Jeremiah turned his head toward me and winked lazily. "See you soon."
Conrad looked at me and said, "What's with the perfume? It's giving me a headache. And why are you wearing all that makeup?"
I wasn't wearing that much makeup. I had some blush and mascara and a little lip gloss, that was it. It was just that he wasn't used to me wearing any. And I'd sprayed my neck and wrists, that was all. Conrad sure hadn't minded Red Sox girl's perfume. He'd loved her perfume. Still, I took one last look at myself in the mirror in the hallway--and I rubbed a little of the blush off, also the perfume.
Then I slammed the door shut and ran down the driveway, where Cam was turning in. I'd been watching from my bedroom window so I'd know the exact moment he drove up, so he wouldn't have to come inside and meet my mother.
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I hopped into Cam's car. "Hi," I said.
"Hi. I would've rung the doorbell," he told me.
"Trust me, it's better this way," I said, suddenly feeling very shy. How is it possible to talk to someone on the phone for hours and hours, to even swim with this person, and then feel like you don't know them?
"So this guy Kinsey, he's kind of weird, but he's a good person," Cam told me as he backed out of the driveway. He was a good driver, careful.
Casually I asked, "Does he by any chance sell crystal meth?"
"Um, not that I know of," he told me, smiling. His right cheek had a dimple in it that I hadn't noticed the other night. It was nice.
I relaxed. Now that the crystal meth stuff was out of the way, there was only one more thing. I twisted the charm bracelet on my wrist over and over and said, "So, you know those guys I was with at the bonfire? Jeremiah and Conrad?"
"Your fake brothers?"
"Yeah. I think they might be stopping by the party too. They know, um, Kinsey," I said.
"Oh, really?" he said. "Cool. Maybe they'll see that I'm not some kind of creep."
"They don't think you're a creep," I told him. "Well, they kind of do, but they'd think any guy I talk to is a creep, so it's nothing personal."
