“I think you should tell him how you feel,” Mia suggested.
She was a senior and had more experience with boys, but that didn’t mean I had to take her advice.
“Umm. No,” I scoffed. “That might work for you, but it won’t work for me.”
“Why? Are you afraid he doesn’t feel the same way?”
“I don’t know yet. We’re all just friends right now.”
She was quiet for a long time. “Maybe just turn the heat up a notch,” she said. “There’s a way to let a guy know you like him without actually saying it. You just have to look at him a certain way. Maybe lay your hand on his arm or his chest. Be flirty.”
I chuckled, because I knew she was only trying to help. “There is no question that you have a special talent for flirting,” I said, “but it’s not my way. I don’t want to wreck this.”
“You won’t. He likes you.”
My gaze shot to hers. “Why do you say that? Did you hear something?”
She sipped her orange juice. “No, but you guys have been hanging out a lot lately. Obviously you all like each other.”
Yes, but I wanted it to be more. My sister knew that, too, which is exactly what drove the wedge into our relationship three days later, when I saw something I didn’t want to see.
Chapter Six
THE WEDGE CAME down at a party that got so out of hand, the neighbors called the cops to come and break it up.
It wasn’t the sirens and flashing lights that started the tension between my sister and me, however. No, that particular incident occurred shortly beforehand, when everyone was still having a good time.
Naturally, the parents of the kid hosting the party weren’t home. They had traveled to Jamaica for a week, trusting their seventeen-year-old son to take care of the house and water the plants. It became the running joke of the night. By the time two paddy wagons arrived on the scene, every plant-holder in the house was spilling over with beer. The floors were covered with potting soil from the runoff, and the dirt had been tracked up the carpeted stairs and into the bedrooms.
The music was blaring. I admit, I’d had a few drinks when my friend Janice took hold of my arm and said, “Come this way. There’s something you need to see.”
I followed her to the crowded kitchen. Janice pointed toward the sliding glass doors at the far end of the room.
There she was. My sister, Mia, throwing her head back and laughing. My stomach turned over with sickening horror when I saw that she was talking to Glenn.
They stood very close to each other in the corner. When she laughed again and laid her hand on his chest, my pulse began to race. I felt an intense hatred. I was filled incomprehensible rage.
Glenn was mine. She knew I liked him. Why was she flirting with him?
“I want to kill her right now,” I said.
“Maybe she’s talking to him about you,” Janice replied. “Maybe she’s trying to help get the two of you together.”
At that moment, Mia grabbed hold of Glenn’s shirt in her slender fist and pulled him closer.
They proceeded to French kiss for about six hours. Or at least that’s how it seemed. I wanted to leave but I couldn’t look away, though it disgusted me, because he was most definitely kissing her back.
“Let’s go,” I finally said, turning away and shouldering my way through the crowd. Janice hurried to grab our coats. She followed me onto the front lawn.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“No, you did the right thing.”
We started walking to her house, where – lucky for Mia – I was spending the night.
I apologize for telling you this story. It must seem trite and immature. That’s how it sounds to me now as I recall it. Boo hoo. My sister stole the boy I liked in high school. Woe is me.
I realize that there are far worse things going on in the world. People are dying of terminal illnesses and starving in developing countries. But on that night, when I was only fifteen years old, the betrayal felt like a meat cleaver in my chest. I adored Glenn and I wanted desperately to be with him. It was a powerful desire, and nothing about it felt childish at the time.
To this day, I don’t believe in that phrase: It’s only puppy love. The feelings were real, and the agony was excruciating, because it had two prongs.
Glenn didn’t want me. He wanted my older sister. And Mia was equally to blame. She had betrayed my trust and taken something – someone – she knew I wanted. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive her.
Chapter Seven
“HE’S NOT RIGHT for you anyway,” Mia argued the next day when I confronted her in the backyard. She was raking the leaves for Dad in exchange for ten dollars. She wanted to buy a purse she had seen at the mall the day before.
“How do you know?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
She wouldn’t look at me. She kept her eyes focused on the pile of leaves she had raked into the center of the yard. “You’re a junior, and he’s a senior. He’ll be gone after this year anyway.”
“And so will you,” I reminded her. “God willing.”
I returned to the house and slammed the screen door behind me.
I will always regret saying that to her.
My friends and I didn’t see much of Glenn’s crowd over the next few weeks. The spontaneous invitations ceased completely. I suppose everyone knew it would be awkward between Glenn, Mia, and me, with all of us in the same room.
Glenn must have known I felt rejected, and I certainly couldn’t stomach the idea of seeing them together. I hated to imagine that they were talking about me. Feeling sorry for me.
What exactly did they talk about on the phone every night? I couldn’t fathom it. Glenn was into alternative music and books, while Mia was into the hit parade and shopping. It made no sense to me. I knew she was all wrong for him, and part of me couldn’t wait for him to realize it.
My friends and I stopped going to the gymnasium at lunch hour to watch basketball. I often wondered if Mia was there in my place, sitting in the bleachers, cheering for Glenn. I didn’t ask her about that. In fact, I didn’t talk to her about anything. At dinner I stuck to small talk. Homework, chores, and whatever my parents wanted to talk about.
They recognized the tension between my sister and me, but thankfully they didn’t force us to work it out at the table.
“This will pass,” my mother said to me one night while I sat at my desk doing homework.
I laid my pencil down on my math book and swiveled to face her. “No, it won’t.”
I hated the fact that I sounded like an emotional teenager, overdramatizing a situation that involved a boy.
But it was so much more than that. No one else realized it. At least not yet.
“You’ll get over him,” Mom said.
“No, I won’t.”
Her brow furrowed with concern. “You’re only fifteen, Kate. There will be plenty of other boys.”
“No, there won’t be,” I firmly argued.
Mom cleared her throat. I doubt she expected to encounter such strong opposition from me.
“And it’s not just about that,” I said, turning my back on her and picking up my pencil again. “It’s about Mia. She knew I liked Glenn. Of all the guys in the school, I don’t know why she had to go after him. She could’ve had anyone she wanted. Glenn was mine.”
I stared down at the half-finished equation in my notebook, but all the numbers and letters appeared jumbled.
“Maybe there’s a hint of jealousy, there,” Mom gently said. “On her part, I mean. Maybe she needed to prove she was older and wiser, doing certain things first.”
I swiveled again to face her. “Like what? Date a guy? She’s dated hundreds of them. Okay, maybe not hundreds, but Glenn’s certainly not her first.”
Mom looked away and I regretted what I had said. I’m sure she suspected that Mia wasn’t a virgin, but it didn’t need to be announced at home with a megaphone.
> For a long while we sat in silence. Mom had a habit of giving me time to ponder my words and reflect upon the hurt they caused. I did ponder them, and I was only sorry for how it hurt her. I didn’t care how it reflected on Mia, because it was the truth.
“Someday,” Mom said, “you are going to meet the most wonderful boy.”
I held up a hand. “No. Please don’t say that.”
She stared at me, then nodded and stood up. “I’m here for you if you need me. If you ever want to talk about it.”
Somehow I managed a melancholy smile, because she wasn’t the one I was angry with. That honor belonged to Mia.
But not to Glenn. Looking back on it now, I wonder why I didn’t blame him more for what happened. Why I made excuses for him.
Clearly, not much would change in the years to come, because once the drinking started, I continued to make excuses for him.
Chapter Eight
THERE ARE TIMES when a feeling of hopelessness dominates our lives, but sometimes you just need to be patient. It’s either not as bad as you think it is when anxiety is strangling you in its double-fisted grip – or perhaps it’s about to do a one-eighty.
I remember the exact date of that sudden hairpin turn during ninth grade. On that night, the course of my life changed forever. Despite what you might think, I have no regrets.
How could I possibly want to change anything, because it resulted in a gift I cannot begin to comprehend all these years later, when I am no longer fifteen. I am now a grown woman, and I am grateful for what happened in my youth, no matter how difficult it was at the time.
But I am getting ahead of myself again...
Chapter Nine
HIS NAME WAS Jeremy. He was a friend of Glenn’s, one of the guys who played basketball on the senior team. He had been at the mall that day when we all met, but I hadn’t taken much notice of him, though he was better looking than Glenn. He was tall and golden haired with broad shoulders and a dreamy pair of blue eyes framed by long black lashes. Intellectually, I knew he was the best looking of the bunch, but for reasons I couldn’t explain, I only had eyes for Glenn.
One night, the phone rang, and my dad called up the stairs. “Kate! It’s for you!”
I had been lying on my bed listening to music, feeling sorry for myself. I remember the song. It was “The Killing Moon” by Echo and the Bunnymen – slightly alternative. Mia probably wouldn’t know it.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hi, Kate, it’s Jeremy. How are you doing?”
Immediately my heart began to pound, because Jeremy was a connection to those blissful few weeks with Glenn, when I had traveled in the same social circle. But why was Jeremy calling me? Did Glenn want to send a message? Had he realized Mia was not the right one for him?
“I’m good,” I said with forced enthusiasm as I sat up on the edge of my bed. “How are you?”
“Great,” he replied. “I hope I’m not calling at a bad time. You’re not studying for a test or anything?”
“No, I’m just listening to music.”
“Yeah? What are you listening to?”
I paused and shot a glance at my stereo. “Echo and the Bunnymen.”
“Cool,” he replied.
Another pause. My stomach started to turn somersaults.
“I haven’t seen much of you these past few weeks,” Jeremy said. “Where have you been?”
Maybe it wasn’t as obvious to everyone else that I had a fanatical thing for Glenn, and that my sister had stabbed me between the shoulder blades. So I spoke casually. “I had a ton of projects due. Sometimes I wish the teachers would talk to each other instead of assigning all their stuff at the same time.”
“I know what you mean. You have MacIntosh for English, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you reading To Kill a Mockingbird?”
“I have an essay due on it next week.”
“Are you finished the book yet?”
“I read it last summer, but I need to go over it again. MacIntosh wants us to pick a theme of our own to write about, but there are so many.”
“It’s a good book,” he said. “Did you see the movie?”
“No.”
“It’s in black and white. It’s good, but they leave a bunch of stuff out. It’s probably best not to watch it until after you write your paper.”
“I’ll take that advice. Thanks.”
I started to relax a bit. I inched back on the bed to lean against the pillows and headboard.
We talked about school and Jeremy’s job at the grocery store, and what happened at the party a few weeks ago when the cops showed up. The guy who hosted the party was grounded for a month. I hadn’t heard about that.
“So are you going to the dance next weekend?” Jeremy asked.
I felt my eyebrows pull together in astonishment. “I’m not sure.”
Mia and Glenn were going. Together. She’d already bought a new pair of shoes. I wasn’t keen on watching them hold hands all night and make out while they waltzed to some schmaltzy Air Supply song.
“Would you go if someone asked you?” Jeremy added.
I was completely bowled over. Did he have a thing for me all along? Had I been too blind to notice?
“It depends on who’s asking,” I replied, feeling very mellow and seductive.
“That would be me,” he said with a chuckle. “It’ll be a good time, I think. You want to go?”
After what happened between Glenn and Mia, I can’t deny that at that moment my ego was a bouncing ball of satisfaction, especially because this invitation was coming from one of the best-looking guys in the school.
“I’d love to,” I replied.
The whole world turned rosy red before my eyes.
He said he’d pick me up at seven.
The dance was still a week away, but Jeremy began an immediate courtship that impressed me greatly. He came to my classroom as soon as the bell rang for lunch each day and invited me to go for walks up and down the halls.
We would walk for a while, then linger in my classroom doorway, facing each other while leaning against the doorjambs. We chatted with other students who passed by.
My friends thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, but for me, the jury was still out on that point.
Chapter Ten
THIS MAY SEEM far-fetched. I still can’t believe it really happened. It’s almost comical when I think about it, but I assure you, this is how it went down.
I was in our garage the day before the dance, looking for a box that had gone missing when we moved to Bar Harbor. It contained some books from the old living room and a collection of 45s that belonged to me – yes, I am referring to the vinyl records. We still had a turntable with a needle, and I was very attached to my Springsteen Hungry Hearts single, and the Eagle’s Live cassette, with the most perfect rendition of “I Can’t Tell You Why” ever recorded.
The door that connected the garage to the kitchen opened on squeaky hinges, and Mia walked out to stand on the landing. She had just curled her hair. It was disturbingly bouncy.
“I need to talk to you,” she said, resting her hand on the railing.
“It sounds urgent,” I coolly replied while I continued to pull boxes from the shelving units.
“It is.”
Honestly, I didn’t want to hear whatever it was she had to say to me. An apology wouldn’t make any difference. Even though I had a spectacular date to the dance, I wasn’t ready to forgive her for coming on to Glenn at that party. It was an issue of trust. She was my sister. I had expected more.
“I don’t know how you’re going to take this,” she said to me, “but I need to tell you how I feel.”
I gave no reply, because I didn’t really care. I was still so angry with her.
Then her selfish, earth-shattering pronouncement dropped like a bomb into the cluttered garage.
“I like Jeremy,” she said.
Her voice echoed off the walls and bounced b
ack and forth like a rubber ball.
Pardon the mixed metaphors, but I was in complete shock.
My hands froze over the cardboard box labeled ‘more junk.’ I turned to face her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I like Jeremy,” she defiantly repeated, her gaze never veering from mine.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“No. I’m sorry, but it’s how I feel. There’s just something about him.”
“Something about him?” I wanted to spit! “How about the fact that he’s interested in me? Is that what makes him so attractive to you?”
When she didn’t reply, I couldn’t hold back the floodwaters of my wrath. “You have Glenn! Is he not enough for you?”
Mia shrugged her shoulders. Seriously. I wanted to strangle her until she turned blue.
Instead, before I committed a capital offense I would regret for the rest of my life, I swallowed hard, shut my eyes, and held up a hand. “Please don’t say another word. I can’t even talk to you right now.”
Then I simply walked out and didn’t look back.
Two days later, on the day of the dance, my sister acted exactly like the spoiled brat I had come to know. She called Glenn on the phone and told him she couldn’t go with him to the dance because she wasn’t feeling well.
As a result, I had two dates that night: Jeremy, who was doing the driving, and Glenn, who would ride in the back seat alone – because he had been stood up by my sister.
Chapter Eleven
HE WAS A good sport about it. Glenn, I mean. He didn’t moan or complain about Mia’s inconvenient illness. He was fun and easygoing, as always. He was the Glenn I had fallen in love with – the guy who always seemed calm and together, taking everything in stride.
When we arrived at the dance, we met up with the rest of his crowd and found a table near the stage with enough chairs for all of us. I was the youngest in the bunch, and it was only at that moment that it occurred to me that Mia might have resented the fact that I was infringing on her territory as a senior. Not that it mattered. I liked this group and they liked me. And really, what’s two years as an age difference? It’s nothing, once you finish high school.
The Color of Heaven Series [02] The Color of Destiny Page 2
