The Secrets of Attraction

by Robin Constantine

  The porch light was on, but the house was dark. Odd. My mother was supposed to have been finished with her RYT class by early afternoon. Her car was in the driveway. She should have been home. Not that I expected a welcoming committee but I thought at least she’d want to hear how my unofficial birthday road trip went. Whatever.

  “I need my bag,” I said. Jesse handed it to me and I knelt down to rummage through the side compartment for my keys. I tucked them into my pocket, rezipped the bag, and stood up. A few weeks ago when I’d dyed his hair, Jesse and I’d been in the same face-to-face position to say good-bye. I’d thought about kissing him then, but now I wanted to act on it. I tugged his hoodie strings.

  “Come here.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  He smiled under my kiss, then finally surrendered to my persuasive tongue. I’d spent the better part of last night tossing and turning, imagining what might have been if his aunt Julia hadn’t greeted us with cocoa. This was worth the wait. I pulled back. Why not take advantage of my mother’s absence?

  “Wanna come in for a bit?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Uhhh—”

  “Or not, I just thought—”

  “Yeah, sure. Kind of not ready to go home yet.”

  My fingers were noodles, useless after the kiss. Key in lock, Mads.

  I finally turned the knob, and pushed open the door. The house was still.

  “Hello?” I called, shutting the door behind us.

  Silence.

  I walked through the kitchen and flicked on the light. Everything was in place. Not even a note on the table. Living room the same. Then I took a breath and creaked up the stairs.

  “Hello?”

  I turned on the lamp at the top landing. All the doors on the second floor were open.

  We were alone. For how long I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t care. My mother obviously didn’t either or else she would have been home.

  Jesse stood at the foot of the stairs. Waiting. I slipped off the jacket and hung it over the banister. I raked my fingers through his hair.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Madison.”

  “Trust me.”

  He relented.

  “So we’re walking back from the meadow and no one is awake—what would we have done?”

  I brought my forehead to his, tracing his lips with the tip of my tongue. His hands found my waist, caressed the curve of my hips as he kissed me full, taking my tongue in his mouth. I threw my arms around him, closing the space between us. He staggered back and my feet left the ground. I wrapped my legs around him, but the momentum made us fall back onto the stairs. My butt at least softened the blow. His hands were on either side of me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Just kiss me.” For the moment his mouth was the perfect sedative, and who cared if we were in this awkward position on the stairs—they always did this sort of thing in the movies, fade to black. The reality was different, though, and about a minute in, the pain in my back went from dull to sharp. My spine wasn’t meant to follow the angles of stairs while Jesse did the equivalent of a push-up—breaking the laws of our own organic architecture.

  “Maybe we should take this somewhere else,” I said between kisses.

  “Mmmm . . .”

  “Come on, Jess.”

  As we got to my bedroom door, my mother’s face popped into my head. What if she came home now, would it piss her off? I turned on my bedside lamp, and Jesse’s eyes wandered the room.

  “Hey, you did this?” He pointed at my dresser to a model of Hearst Tower, which I’d built out of Popsicle sticks for a sophomore art project.

  “Guilty. I love that design.”

  “Cool,” he said, moving over to my desk. I resisted the urge to dart in front of him and body-block it. It was a disaster zone. Koh-I-Noor pens with missing caps, crumpled paper with failed drafting attempts, rubber-band bracelets that I still wore sometimes. I noticed something else, something he was about to pick up.

  “Oh, um.”

  I froze, fingers on my lips. My cheeks burned. I normally didn’t blush but it felt like I could light the whole room. This was too personal. For both of us. He looked at the sketch—the one I drew from the picture of him from that night at the Sadie Hawkins Dance—without saying a word. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he wanted to leave—I wanted to leave. Why had I asked him in? Where the heck was my mother when I needed her to intrude?

  “Is this—?”

  “You? Yes.” I stepped from one foot to the other. “From that night at the dance. You were in the background of this picture I took and when I saw it I thought—it made me wonder what you were looking at, and I just started doodling and, I know, it’s awful.”

  “No it’s not.” He tilted his head as he studied the sketch.

  The question that inspired me to draw the picture prodded my brain.

  “Were you really just there to see the band that night?”

  He nodded, placed the paper back on the desk, and turned to me. His eyes were different, or maybe I was—he had the upper hand, he knew somehow he had caught a glimpse of me in that picture. He knew that I thought about him. I stepped back as he came toward me.

  “I saw Hannah that night—with Duncan. That’s the night I realized they weren’t together to screw me over. They were just together. I took off that infinity bracelet after that.”

  “Oh.”

  His fingers traced my jawline, snaked up into my hair.

  “So you don’t think I’m a total creeper for drawing you?”

  He answered me with a kiss so soft and sweet it was like taking a sip of a warm drink; heat crept down to my toes, to my fingertips as I put my arms around him. His heart thumped against mine. We fell back onto my bed, tangled up in each other—my knee between his, his hand on my hip.

  His lips explored my cheek, my forehead. I kissed his neck, the space below his ear. He sighed and pulled me closer.

  “Stay,” I whispered, laying my cheek against his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath underneath me. His laugh vibrated in his rib cage.

  “Sure.”

  I snuggled against him, my head fitting perfectly in the crook of his neck. I closed my eyes.

  So perfectly.

  So perfect.

  So perf . . .

  “Madison.”

  I opened my eyes, my cheek still on Jesse’s chest. It took a moment to orient myself. How much time had passed? I propped myself up on my hands.

  My mother stood at the foot of the bed. A crease formed on the bridge of her nose as she looked at Jesse, then me. I nudged Jess. He kind of gasped awake, running a hand across his face, eyes soft with sleep. He looked so damn cute as he sat up, all I wanted to do was push him back down and kiss him. Well, maybe if my mother hadn’t been boring holes into my brain.

  “What time is it?” I prayed she wouldn’t start in on me about him being in my room. She had to see it was innocent.

  “It’s a little after eight.” Her voice was clipped.

  “Wow.” Jesse blinked a few times before standing up. I followed, ignoring the weight of my mother’s glare.

  “Where were you? I thought you’d be home when we got here,” I said. Her features softened slightly.

  “A few of us went out after class. Why are you up here? How long have you been home?”

  I looked at Jess; his face was blank but he’d caught my mother’s miffed vibe. He shoved his hands so deep into his hoodie pockets, the front stretched taut.

  “Around six maybe,” I answered.

  She nodded and looked between us.

  “Jesse, Madison’s not allowed to have guests on the second floor. I guess she didn’t mention that.”

  She hadn’t yelled, but somehow that made it worse. My gut wrenched with shame. “Mom.”

  The room became a vortex of awkward. Jesse eyed the door and then looked at me, his eyes pleading to make a run for it. I nodde
d.

  “I, um, didn’t realize it was so late, I better get home,” he said.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  “How was the trip, guys?” My mother followed us down the stairs.

  She really expected a lighthearted convo after she’d just humiliated me?

  “Oh, it was great,” Jesse answered. “We had a good time.”

  “And the drive?” she asked as we hit the landing.

  “Long,” we said together. I bit my tongue to stop myself from saying jinx. It seemed like too much of a fun, casual thing to say after getting caught upstairs. Even though we hadn’t actually been doing anything. I reached for the door. My mother opened her mouth to say something.

  “He has to leave,” I snapped. It came out a little more forceful than I meant it to sound. She recoiled slightly.

  “Well, have a safe ride home, Jesse. I’m making tea, Mads, want some?”

  “Nope.” I closed the door behind us and stepped onto the porch. “I’m so sorry about that.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” He leaned down so his mouth was by my ear. “It was worth it.”

  I growled, tugged on the front of his hoodie. “I don’t want this weekend to end.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “we can think of it as a beginning.”

  “Jess.”

  We kissed.

  “I’ll call you.” He backed off the porch, keeping his eyes on me until he finally realized going down the steps in reverse in the dark might not be the smartest move. He turned and jumped over the last two stairs to the sidewalk. I waited until the VW was down the street before heading back into the house.

  My mother was in the kitchen, standing over the kettle. Her cup and saucer already on the counter, chamomile tag hanging out.

  “Why did you have to do that?”

  She looked at me, the same face as she had on when I saw her at the foot of my bed.

  “I could ask you the same thing. You know how I feel—”

  “We didn’t do anything except fall asleep.”

  “It’s one rule, Madison.”

  One ridiculous rule.

  “I’m seventeen, Mom. Maybe it’s time to change.”

  She seemed to consider it. “I’ll think about it, but for now, you broke a trust—I’m not happy about that.”

  Her words sunk in.

  Trust.

  Not happy about that.

  I stomped out of the kitchen.

  What the frig? I stomped right back in.

  “You said I broke a trust? What about you? You’ve done nothing but lie to me my entire life.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Another word that you should stop using.”

  “Madison, enough—I’m not talking about my choices, I’m talking about yours. My rule about not going upstairs is about boundaries. Don’t blow this up into something it’s not.”

  “You’re the one throwing around the ‘trust’ word. It makes you a hypocrite.”

  “What do you want from me? I can’t go back and change anything. I can only deal with what’s in front of me. I screwed up. I know that. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t make anything better!” I left the room in a huff. She followed.

  “Don’t you think I know that? Paul’s angry with me. You’re angry with me—and for that I’m actually grateful—we both thought you were taking this too well. You have every right to be outraged.”

  “You’re grateful that I’m angry? So now even being angry isn’t my choice either, you’re allowing me to feel this way because it’s the right thing? Thanks, Mom.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant. All I’m saying is getting angry is part of it—yell at me, don’t talk to me, whatever it takes for you to get through this, so you can find your way to forgive me.”

  “Omigod, just cut it with the earthy-crunchy pop-yoga speak already.” I opened my arms wide as I walked through her meditation space. “I could probably meditate for twenty years and still not find my way to forgive you.”

  I tripped over the edge of the bolster, flailing to keep upright. My fingertips grazed the statue on the mantel and I watched in horror as it slipped over the edge. I reached out to save it, but Laughing Buddha smashed to the floor into several little plaster chunks. It sobered me up from the fight. The kettle whistled from the kitchen. My mother stood still, hand over her mouth. Her eyes grew glassy. Why did I go off like that?

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I whispered, bending down to clean up.

  “Don’t touch it.”

  “Mom.”

  “Just go. I’ll deal with it.”

  She walked back into the kitchen. The kettle sputtered and went silent. I flew upstairs to my room, slamming the door behind me. I waited for my mother to storm up the stairs and yell at me for making the house rattle, but there were only the sounds of her puttering through the rooms downstairs. I guess I could have insisted on cleaning up the mess I made. Was she really that broken up over the statue?

  No. Of course not, it was everything before that.

  It felt good to get that off my chest, but maybe I’d been a little too dramatic about the trust thing. I knew she felt bad about everything, that if she could change things she would, but—she couldn’t. The only thing we could change was right now. Put together some new version of us with Paul included—like form ever follows function in architecture, we’d shape a new family to suit us. And it was about time the second-floor rule was retired. I wasn’t a latchkey kid. I could handle myself. I’d be on my own in the summer program—and in a little over a year, if all went well, I’d be on my own in school.

  Once she finished her tea she’d probably knock on my door—I could apologize, really tell her about the weekend—but when she came up the stairs her footsteps went past my room. The lock on her door clicked shut.

  Screw it, then.

  I took a scalding-hot shower and changed into a tee and PJ bottoms. While I brushed my teeth I heard a drumming noise. My phone. Jesse. I ran out of the bathroom and into my room, doing a quick scan to figure out where the ring was coming from, then realized it was from downstairs. I clomped down the stairs, nearly tripping again, before I realized I’d left my phone in the pocket of Jesse’s leather jacket, which still hung over the railing. I grabbed the jacket, rifling through the pockets for the phone. The ping of change echoed through the hall as the contents of one of his pockets spilled onto the stairs.

  “Shit.”

  The phone stopped ringing. I tapped in my unlock code and swiped the flashlight feature so I could pick up what had fallen out of the pocket. There was a small rectangle of gum, a few coins, a green guitar pick, and a napkin from Whiskey Business with some sort of writing on it. I gathered it up in my palm and went back to my room to sort it out and check my messages.

  I sat on the bed and slid the change back into Jesse’s pocket. I unwrapped the gum and put it in my mouth—cinnamon. Ha, I’d pegged him as more of a spearmint guy, not sure why. I held the green guitar pick between my fingers. It was smooth—the word Fender worn off slightly in the center of it. I tucked it back into his pocket.

  The Whiskey Business napkin had writing on it. There was a name—Becca—written in swirly blue lettering and a phone number underneath. I smoothed it out on my bed, just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things—maybe it was just the number for the bar, maybe this was some special marketing gimmick to make it look like pen—but as I looked closer it was indeed a girl’s name and number, in blue ink that had smeared. The surge of jealousy that flared in my stomach surprised me.

  I scrolled through my messages. There were four from Jesse. The last one read:

  Asleep?

  And a voice mail to call him at any time. He’d be up for a while.

  And then there was a text from . . . Zach?

  Miss u babe. HB!

  The date stamp was from the previous night and must have been delayed due to me being in the Middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. Maybe it was a drunk text
. He hadn’t looked like he was going to miss me when he hopped into the car that night in Hoboken. The phone rang. Jesse. I let it roll over to voice mail.

  You’re overreacting. A number in a pocket doesn’t mean anything. And look, Zach texted you. Are you going to tell Jesse that?

  I said these things to myself, even understood them, but the ragged feeling ate away at me anyway. Without thinking I flattened out the napkin and called the number. After two rings, a girl’s perky voice sang, “Hello?” on the other end.

  What was I doing?

  “Um, hello?”

  I deepened my voice. “Can I speak to Jesse?”

  “Who?”

  “Jesse McMann?”

  “Wrong number.” Click.

  I stood up and threw the phone on my bed. I didn’t do jealousy. The voice on the other end took on the phantom form of some leggy, hot girl named Becca, ready to leave lipstick stains on Jesse’s skin without a thought if he had anyone else.

  Why did this bother me so much?

  All of the things I’d done with Jesse over the past twenty-four hours came back in a rush. What I told him about Paul being my father and the way I felt about birthdays. How right it felt to kiss him in the meadow, to wake up in his arms in my room, no matter how much trouble it got me into. How could a napkin with a number just pull it out from under me? I’d cracked open, let him in, and I hated how vulnerable it made me feel, that this feeling had some sort of power over me, made me do ridiculous things like call a stranger.

  Maybe we can think of it as a beginning.

  How could I begin anything, when I couldn’t even trust—

  Trust. That fucking word again.

  I flopped back down on my bed, picked up my phone, and dialed.

  He picked up almost immediately.

  “Madison? Hey.”

  I needed a dose of the familiar.

  “Zach . . . thanks for the birthday wishes.”

  TWENTY

  JESSE

  I COULDN’T REMEMBER THE DRIVE HOME. ALL I could think of was her face, the way she looked up at me, the gentle curve of her jawline. All I could hear was that beat from the morning when I first woke up—the one that went through my brain when I thought about being alone with her in the meadow. I thought about the stars, the heat of her mouth when we kissed. Fragments coming together. And then words . . .