by Jen Klein
Hope shakes her head. “No.”
Okay, I feel better about that. Until she continues—
“He tried once, but it’s not my thing.” She smiles at me. “I think you’ll like it, though. Wear something warm.”
And then she’s gone. Leaving me with my questions, my insecurity, and my jealousy.
It’s not a great combination.
As promised in his Friday-evening text, Ardy is at my house at eight o’clock sharp Saturday morning. My mother looks shocked when I come out to answer the door, fully showered and dressed. “Is it the apocalypse?” she asks me.
“No.”
“Prom?”
“We don’t have a prom.” I open the door to let Ardy in, which somehow surprises my mother even though I had a conversation about it with her last night.
“Hi,” Ardy says to both of us. His smile slips when he sees the deep look of suspicion on my mother’s face. He holds out a hand to her. “I’m Ardy Tate.”
“Ms. Dayton.” She shakes his hand, letting go quickly. “I didn’t realize you were planning on leaving this early, Lark.”
“I told you last night,” I remind her.
“I thought there would be more information first,” she says. “Where are you going?”
It’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen: Mom questioning me in front of Ardy. “I’m not sure,” I tell her. “I’ll have my phone with me.”
“And you’ll be with a boy I literally just met.” Mom folds her arms, looking stern.
I’m horrified and about to make a plea for freedom—or maybe fake a fainting fit—when Ardy takes a step forward. “Could I please talk to you in another room, ma’am?” Mom and I both stare at him. “I’m trying to surprise your daughter,” he explains.
“Interesting,” Mom says while I contemplate dying on the spot. “And just what is the nature of your relationship with my daughter?”
“Mom!” It bursts out of me as a deep blush rises to my cheeks.
But Ardy doesn’t miss a beat. “We’re friends,” he tells my mom, which makes my heart sink and my mother’s face tighten in disbelief. Except then he continues. “However, if today goes well and she doesn’t hate it, and if she turns out to really be as cool as I think she is, I might try to kiss her.”
My mouth drops open. So does my mother’s.
“But not until the very end of the day,” Ardy goes on. “Maybe on the front porch. With the light on.”
I can’t move, I’m so…I don’t know what. Shocked? Astounded?
Terrified?
Mom doesn’t look any less startled than I feel. We all stand there for a long moment before she gestures toward the kitchen. “After you,” she tells Ardy. He nods and heads in the direction she indicates. Before marching after him, Mom shoots me a look that I think I can safely interpret as WTF?
Since I have no idea what one is supposed to do while one’s potential love interest is confiding in one’s mother, I sink to the living room couch and shoot a group text to Cooper and Katie:
You will NOT believe what is happening up in here.
It’s a full minute before anyone responds. Then it’s Cooper:
Is it sleep? Because that’s what’s happening HERE.
Dude. Come on. I text back:
COOPER. It’s about Ardy.
But apparently his beauty rest is more important because all I get from him is:
ZZZZZZZZZZ!
Katie doesn’t reply at all. I’m about to text something rude when Mom returns, with Ardy trailing behind her. I shoot to my feet, expecting the worst, but she doesn’t look mad. She nods at me. “Get a coat.”
I look at Ardy, and my face flushes again. If he notices, he doesn’t mention it. He only says, “She’s right.”
Without a word, I spin and head back to my room. But after a minute or two of ripping my closet apart, I can find nothing remotely resembling a reasonably warm piece of outerwear. I come back to the living room to find Ardy and my mom still standing there. God only knows what they’re talking about, because what kind of conversation can someone have with the woman who birthed the person you’ve just announced you want to kiss.
Might want to kiss.
Which I’m trying not to think about right now because otherwise I will melt into a useless puddle right here in the living room.
“I can’t find my coat,” I tell my mom. “Do you know where it is?”
“Maybe the boxes above the garage?” she guesses.
“It’s not going to be that cold,” Ardy says. “A hoodie would be fine.”
“You have that pink one,” my mother contributes.
“It’s dirty,” I tell her.
“Another one, then,” she says.
“I don’t have another one,” I say without thinking, and then suck in my breath because immediately—horrifyingly—I’m jolted by the memory of the lie I told Ardy when I went to his house that day: I left my hoodie here. Light blue. Have you seen it?
OhGodohGodohGod.
“I mean, I lost it,” I say as fast as I can.
My mother snaps her fingers like she’s remembering something. “We put the jackets in the TV room closet.”
“Great,” I say weakly, and make a move in that direction, but she holds up a hand to stop me.
“Let me. I think they’re in the box behind the Christmas decorations.”
She’s gone before I can say anything else. I stand there like a statue, facing in the direction she’s gone, because I can’t bear to look at Ardy. I’m so mortified by everything that’s been said in this room today.
As a reminder, this day is only, like, an hour old.
Beside me, Ardy clears his throat. “Lark.”
“Ardy.” I still can’t bring myself to turn toward him.
“We can talk about it in the car,” he says.
“I might be too busy dying of embarrassment in the car.” It elicits a burst of laughter from Ardy, which—somehow—makes me feel better. This time I turn toward him, and even though my cheeks continue to burn, I raise my eyes to his. “Do you want to cancel?” I ask.
Ardy is gazing down at me, a half smile playing across his face. I’m not totally sure, but I think his cheeks might be a little flushed, too. “Definitely not.”
We’re still looking at each other when Mom returns with one of Leo’s ratty sweatshirts, a pink beanie, ski gloves, and a huge purple scarf that my grandmother knit. “I couldn’t find the jackets,” she says.
“This is fine.” I grab everything and escape with Ardy.
* * *
As is apparently our tradition in cars, no one says anything for the first twenty minutes while Ardy pilots us through Burbank and onto the highway heading south. I search my mind for acceptable topics of conversation and finally land on something that seems safe. “I thought you didn’t have a car.”
“I share this one with my mom,” he says. “It was hers first, lest you think I chose to drive a minivan.”
Okay, that’s fair.
“What did you say to my mom?” I ask. “To get her to let me go, I mean?”
“Not much. She called my mother.”
“What?!” That’s horrifying. “She made you give her your mom’s number?”
“I offered it to her,” Ardy says. “She also took a picture of my driver’s license.”
I guess I’m going to have a daylong blushing session. Awesome.
“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” I tell Ardy.
“Nah.” He seems nonplussed. “She’s just looking out for you.” He waits another couple of minutes before asking, “Anything else you want to talk about?”
Here goes nothing.
I shift in my seat, turning to face him, folding my left leg beneath me so my
knee is crooked up on the center console, very close to Ardy’s body. He glances at me, then—as he should—returns his eyes to the road. “Yes?”
“I can’t believe you said that to my mom.”
“Which part?” I know he knows exactly which part I’m talking about, but I suspect he wants to torture me and make me say it out loud, too.
“The kissing part.”
“I know, right?” He shakes his head. “Who does that? It was weird.”
“I guess it wasn’t any weirder than Hoodie-gate.”
“Hoodie-gate.” Ardy grins. “I like that.” Another glance in my direction, then he takes his right hand off the wheel for a second so he can tap me on the knee. “I already knew about the hoodie. I knew when you showed up at my door that day.”
“Really?” I stare at him. “How?”
“Careful. We might venture into weird territory again.”
“I can take it,” I tell him.
“Okay.” He pauses and I see him swallow. “Dark jeans with the bottoms rolled up.”
“Huh?” I’m not following.
“Some kind of sandals with a heel. White shirt with buttons. Dangly earrings.”
Ah. Now I understand. “Fringe drops,” I tell him.
“What?”
“The earrings. Cooper gave them to me last year on the first night of Hanukkah. They’re called fringe drops.” Although before this moment I didn’t remember what I had been wearing on the day when Leo and I drove him home, apparently Ardy did.
“Yeah, that. It’s what you were wearing when I met Hope at the flagpoles that day.” He glances at me again. “It’s a cute outfit.”
“Thank you.” Because what else would I say?
“But it did not include a light blue hoodie.”
All these blatant statements. I don’t know what to do with them.
“No, it didn’t.” I wiggle in my seat, so uncomfortable with all this truth we’re throwing around. But if Ardy can say things honestly—including to my mom—then I should make an attempt to be at least half as brave. “I needed an excuse,” I say in a small voice.
“I figured that out.” Ardy isn’t smiling anymore, but somehow there’s a smile in his voice. “But if you hadn’t done that, if you’d knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to hang out…that would have been cool, too.”
“Well, I know that now,” I tell him.
This time the smile reaches his face. “Good.”
There are a few more moments of silence, during which I weigh how to go about the rest of this day. It’s like we’ve skipped over all the usual superficialities and gone straight into Real Talk. Which should be an improvement, except that it’s also an unknown language. At least, to me. Ardy appears to be shockingly proficient in it.
He clears his throat. “Don’t take this as anything more than a question of interest, but…what do you know about the prom?”
I’m not sure if I should be mildly offended by the way he qualifies it. We haven’t even kissed yet. “Having a prom would be bending to societal norms,” I tell him. “There will be no prom.”
Which is true. We’re the first senior class at REACH. The plan is to not have a “prom” the way other schools have them. We buck the system and all that.
“But there will be a party or something instead, right?” Ardy asks.
“The Not-Prom is called the Spring Fling Thing,” I tell him. “It’s sometime in February. You’re not supposed to have a date for it. And it’s going to be an overnight lock-in, with either roller-skating, bowling, or go-karting at Wheelz. I think we’re going to vote on it next week. Because, you know, democracy.”
“Which will you vote for?”
“I’m not sure.” I don’t tell him what’s really going through my head: a pro for Wheelz is obviously more money coming in for our business. A con is that it’ll mean a ton of extra work for Dad, which always leads to yet more fights on the home front. “I have concerns about the bowling alley smelling like feet.”
“I have similar concerns about the roller-skating rink.” Ardy considers. “If we’re going to sleep on the floor somewhere, we should probably pick the place that is most olfactorily pleasant.”
I have a sudden mental image of the two of us on the Wheelz party room floor, curled up together in a sleeping bag. I go warm everywhere, like I’m blushing on the inside. Not that any faculty member—even at our nontraditional school—would allow two students to cuddle up and sleep together, but still. The possibility exists. Of course, I don’t say any of this. What I say is “Wheelz usually smells like buttered popcorn and burning brakes.”
“Better than feet.”
“Absolutely.” I pick at the frayed hem of Leo’s sweatshirt on my lap. “The teachers all talk about it like they’re reinventing the wheel. Like, because we won’t have corsages or a prom king and queen, it’s something totally new and different.”
“And better,” Ardy agrees. “What I’ve noticed is that everyone is very smug about it.” He puts on a terrible British accent. “Muffy, thank the Lord that we won’t be putting on a prom like those common guttersnipes at the regular public school.”
“Oh, heavens,” I reply in my own horrible accent, the one that drives Cooper up the wall. “That would be simply awful…Aloysius.”
Ardy raises an eyebrow. “Aloysius?”
I lean forward so I’m in his peripheral vision. “You said Muffy.”
“Fair enough.” Ardy laughs and switches back to his regular voice. “Trust me, the Not-Prom will end up being traditional. No matter what they do, it’s still going to be the big event of our senior year. People will go together or in groups.”
“There will be multiple conversations about what everyone will wear,” I chime in. “And someone will get drunk enough to throw up.”
“Exactly. Someone will get drunk enough to break up.”
“Someone will lose their virginity….” I trail off, suddenly appalled by what I’ve said. By the fact that the word virginity has come out of my mouth in the presence of Ardy. Because now the subject of sex has been broached. It was one thing when there was a group of us having a hypothetical conversation about killing or marrying (or punching or kissing), but this is entirely different. It’s different because it’s suddenly more personal. More present.
More possible.
I have to wonder—has Ardy had sex?
More importantly, if he posed the question to me—Are you a virgin?—how would I answer? The truth is that I don’t really have an answer.
Sometime in the middle of junior year, I ended up fooling around with this guy named Elliot, who I met at the bookstore. He was in community college, and things moved fast. Really fast. Only a couple of weeks in, there was a moment when we almost did it. Like, truly almost did it. It wasn’t even that I was so turned on in the moment, but three things combined in a perfect storm to make it almost happen: (1) Katie had recently lost her virginity and told me how it great it was and said she didn’t know what I was waiting around for; (2) Elliot clearly wanted to—I mean, really wanted to; and (3) I was curious. Sex is supposed to be such a huge deal, and I wanted to know why.
But.
In that moment, when I was skin to sweaty skin with Elliot in the backseat of his car, none of that was enough. I wasn’t ready.
I told Elliot that my period had started. For me, that excuse was way better than the truth: that although I had initially been on board, it was no longer the case. Looking back with a little distance, I should have been honest. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind at any point along the way.
Unfortunately, Elliot didn’t agree. He was not thrilled about stopping. Not at all. Which clarified that I shouldn’t have considered having sex with him in the first place. One thing I do know is this: if a guy tries to pressure you into doing it, get r
id of him. Fast.
We broke up that night.
After Elliot, there was one other guy I came close to doing the Deed with. His name was Kai, and I met him in the frozen-yogurt place downtown. He was…there’s no subtle way to say this…
So.
Freaking.
Hot.
It was at the beginning of last summer, right after Katie had sex for the second time, with Bo Garrison from the Catholic school. She would not shut up about how you need to figure it out in high school so you don’t seem inexperienced when you get to college. Even Cooper started talking about doing it. It made me determined to get my virginity out of the way.
So Kai and I went out a few times. And by went out, I mean he met me at the field gate after football games and we found a place to park in his car. To be fair, we did go to see one movie, but even then we spent the whole time kissing in the back row. The last time we were together, however, was in his parents’ basement. Things went in that direction—the sex direction—and this time I was determined to go through with it. I had two of Katie’s condoms in my purse.
I. Was. Ready.
And I thought Kai was, too. I mean, he made it seem like he was. He said he was. But when it came down to Doing It, something didn’t go quite right. We kind of started—at least I think we started, because by all definitions from middle school health class, the right things were beginning to move into the right places—but then he stopped and it was over. He seemed embarrassed, and I’m still not clear on what went wrong, but the whole thing was awkward and…to this day, I’m not sure whether I’m a virgin. The dictionary definition is a little blurry on this one.
We kind of stopped talking after that. It was a perfect mutual ghosting. Probably my easiest breakup ever.
“What?” Ardy says, which brings me back to this boy, to this car. I look at Ardy’s profile—at the pale ski slope of his nose, the high expanse of his cheekbones, the brown swoop of his hair—and I come out with it: “You said you might want to kiss me.”
“I did.” Ardy nods, so matter-of-fact. “You’ll have to decide if you want to kiss me, too.”
