by Deena Lipomi
A movie? Like a real date? With Devon? Um, hell yes!
“Just give me a minute to shower?”
“Sure,” he says and I hold the door open for him to come in. The house could be in a worse, messier state than it is. All in all, it’s not as bad as my hair, clothes, or breath.
“Have a seat.” I gesture to the couch. “You can turn on the TV if you want. I’ll be right back.”
Devon nods once, but his attention is on the family photographs across the walls.
I debate calling Kasey before jumping in the shower, but there’s no time. I turn on the cold water to cool off. I can do this on my own without coming across like nervous dork. Right?
Twenty minutes later, my body is clean, my face is powdered, and I’ve coated my hair with more products than I’ve used in a year in an effort to keep the frizz at bay. I’m dressed in my baby blue tank top that is the best at hiding my bra straps, narrowing my waist, and showing off my boobs according to Kasey.
I step into the living room, hoping Devon hasn’t fallen asleep bored and impatient. Annie sits on the recliner, her hands crossed on her stomach, her gaze into space even though Devon is talking to her.
“I saw your stuff at the art show last year,” he says.
“Oh,” Annie says, pretty in her pink yoga pants, white t-shirt, and messy ponytail. She looks better before her shower than I look after mine. Of course Devon’s talking to her and doesn’t turn to me when I enter the room.
So much for working the boobs. With my lips in a tight smile, I get ready to interrupt them.
Then, on his own, Devon looks my way.
***
“Your sister’s kinda quiet,” Devon says as we walk along the hot sidewalks to the Cinemaster. “I never would’ve thought so from how she is at school.”
“Oh, yeah, well she’s going through some…stuff right now.” Wow, that was smooth. I focus on not stepping on sidewalk cracks until I realize I look like a freak.
“Can I ask you something else?” Devon says.
“Of course,” I cautiously reply.
“When do I get my cookies?”
This question is such a relief that I laugh. “As soon as it cools down and I won’t get heat stroke from turning on the oven. I promise.”
We arrive at the Cinemaster five minutes before the discounted double feature starts.
“Two please,” Devon says when we get to the front of the line. “Want a drink?”
“Um, a Coke would be good,” I say, hoping it will help my nervous dry mouth. Except the caffeine might make me all jittery. “Wait, how about a Sprite?”
“Are you a girl who can’t make up her mind?” Devon asks with one eyebrow cocked.
“Maybe,” I say and get Devon to laugh.
The college-aged guy working the snack counter sighs as if there’s a line behind us.
“Definitely Sprite,” I say.
Devon orders the same and the counter guy passes me an icy cup. I’m glad to have something to do with my hands other than wipe the sweat from them onto my shorts.
The theater is dark when we find two empty seats. A second later the first feature, a sci-fi action flick starring Tom Cruise, floods the screen. I take a sip of my drink and muffle an immediate burp as the fizz settles in my gut. Oh god, please don’t let him think I’m gross.
Devon’s eyes are fixed on the screen.
I set my drink down and try to do the same. Pay attention to Tom Cruise and his mission to save the world. I can do this.
Devon shifts and my eyes jerk to him. He moved his knee closer to my leg. I adjust my own so my knee taps against his. I’m trying to be subtle, but it’s nearly impossible considering the force it takes to lift my feet off the super sticky floor. I end up jamming my shin into his.
He shifts away from me. Ugh.
Don’t panic, Melanie. Keep your eyes on Tom Cruise.
But then Devon leans over and whispers something in my ear. I think it’s about the gargantuan size of the twenty-dollar popcorn tubs, but I can’t be sure since the soundtrack’s so loud. I smile and nod and think about the way his breath tickles my cheek.
By the time Tom Cruise is jump-kicking the masked enemy in the head, my drink is gone and I really have to pee. I slink away to the bathroom and when I return, Devon’s hand is draped over the armrest, just behind the cup holder.
Did he do it on purpose so I’d hold his hand? Staring at his face changing colors in the movie light reveals no answers.
I gather all my courage, wipe my hand on the front of my shorts, and place my fingertips on his knuckles.
He flips his hand over, palm side up, and entwines his fingers in mine.
I don’t let go.
When the credits roll, Devon stretches and cracks his knuckles. My hand feels cold without his in it.
“Wanna stay for the next movie?” he asks.
“I think my butt might fall asleep.” Oh god, did I just mention my ass?
Devon laughs, takes my hand back and holds it as he walks me home. I smile the whole way.
Dad’s in the front yard watering the rose bushes when we get there. He salutes us and goes back to watering. I can’t believe he did his geeky gesture, although that’s better than him taking our photo.
“Thanks for the company,” Devon says as we stand at the end of my driveway.
“Thanks for inviting me.”
He gives my hands a squeeze before backing away. “Can I call you tomorrow?”
“I work during the day, so call me later in the afternoon?”
“Will do. I had fun,” he says.
“So did I.”
I want to kiss him.
Dad is watching.
I want to kiss him anyway.
“Later.” Devon turns and walks down the street, his legs toned and perfect beneath his baggy shorts.
Ugh. My stupid brain needs to think less and act more.
Dad turns off the hose. The yard goes quiet without the rushing water. “New boyfriend?”
As if there was ever an old boyfriend. He must be confusing me with Annie.
“His name’s Devon,” I say. “He was my lab partner in school last year.”
“Ah.” Dad grins, picks up his garden shears, and sets to clipping off the crispy roses.
In this moment I am grateful Dad is a man of few words.
I float into the kitchen, grab a nectarine out of the fruit bowl, and flop onto the living room couch. Fruit juice drips into my hand with every bite, and think what a sweet, juicy day it has been.
***
“Mel, dinner! Dad grilled hot dogs,” Mom calls.
“Coming,” I yell from my bedroom before meeting her outside. The picnic table is set for three. “Where’s Annie?”
“She said she wasn’t feeling well enough to eat and went for a walk.” Mom sits down, her red lips in a thin line.
“Oh.” I ignore the accusing tone in her voice and squirt some of my special sauce recipe onto the white hot dog Dad sets in front of me. The condiment is a blend of ketchup, mustard, dill relish, and red pepper flakes, among other things.
“So,” Mom says, forking onions on her hot while Dad tends to the grill, “who was this boy Dad saw you with earlier?”
“Devon, from school,” I say with my mouth full.
“Make sure he doesn’t come inside the house unless Dad or I are home.”
Oh god, did Annie tattle on me for this afternoon? After all the secrets I’m keeping for her?
“Don’t worry, Mom.” I stuff another bite of the dog in my mouth and get up from the table before this can turn into an argument.
I’m not fast enough.
“Don’t leave this table,” Mom snaps. “Your father hasn’t even sat down to eat yet.”
“Can’t you just be happy for me?” I ask, straddling the bench.
Mom sighs. “I’m glad you’re happy, but it wouldn’t hurt you to be respectful at the same time and to think about your sister.”
“Think about Annie?” I can’t help but drop my jaw. “She has nothing to do with me and Devon.”
“Melanie,” Mom starts.
I don’t let her continue. “You think I’m not thinking about her and how messed up the whole thing is?”
“Melanie,” Dad echoes over the sizzling grill, “that’s not what she means.”
“Then what do you mean, Mom? You mean you’re upset I won’t spy on her for you and find out about the baby’s father instead of spending time with Devon?”
“I never asked you to spy on anyone,” Mom says. “But is it too much to ask to want to help the boy’s family? To want to know who the father of my grandchild is?”
“Honey,” Dad says, “we all need to calm down here.”
“Charles, don’t patronize me,” Mom snaps. “I’m just asking my daughter to follow the rules and try to help while Annie figures things out.”
“When have I never not followed the rules?” I ask. “Did Annie tell you Devon was in the house this morning?”
Mom’s eyes get wide. “You did have him in the house this morning?”
“Melanie,” Dad says in monotone as he puts his hands on Mom’s shoulders, “you know better than that.”
My heart sinks. Annie didn’t tell them? Crap. But that doesn’t make me any less mad at Mom. “He was inside for, like, ten minutes. Nothing happened! He just picked me up before we went to the movies.”
Mom stands, dark tears stained from her mascara run down her cheeks. Dad backs away like he knows what’s coming and nothing he says can stop her.
“This is our house. Your father’s and mine. And our rules, which you will follow.” Mom’s black tears settle into the wrinkles under her eyes making her look twenty years older.
“Nothing happened,” I say again. “If I wanted to do something, I would’ve run off to a hotel like Annie did.”
“What? What hotel?” Mom says, rubbing a napkin over her cheeks.
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I feel my hot dog threaten to reappear from my stomach. I run inside, shut myself in my room, and blare some old 90s grunge songs that make me feel good in a masochistic, I’m-already-pissed-off way.
The house phone rings. Once, twice, three times. I left my cell downstairs so it could be Kasey wondering why I’m not answering.
“Hello?” I answer.
There’s no response.
“Harris?” My heart pounds louder than the bass coming from my speakers. “If that’s you, you’d better hang up now.”
A second later the line goes dead.
The phone immediately rings again.
I snatch it up, ready to go to battle. “What do you want?” I demand.
“Hi. Um, may I please speak to Annie?” a familiar southern accent asks.
“Didn’t you hear me?”
“Please,” Harris interrupts. “It’s important.”
I’m glad the heavy music is rattling the walls. It gives me the strength I need.
“Go to hell.”
This time I hang up and feel strangely calm.
***
It’s dark by the time Annie comes home. I picture Mom sitting at the kitchen table, reading gardening magazines, offering her a leftover hot dog warmed up in the microwave.
I’m sure Annie refuses. I hear her come upstairs, shower, and then shut herself into her room.
After Mom and Dad go to bed, I get up to brush my teeth. Annie’s standing outside my door when I whip it open.
“What?” I whisper, startled.
“It’s Harris. Everything’s such a mess.” Annie’s damp hair hangs uncombed around her face and she’s wrapped in her yellow robe despite the heat. She turns to go downstairs.
Like a good older sister, I follow.
Chapter 11
“I feel so stupid,” Annie says. “I emailed Harris and told him everything. God, I signed the email love!” She buries her face in her hands and hangs her head so her damp hair creates a shield between us.
I don’t tell her I know exactly what the email said.
“He hates me,” Annie says with a muffled sniffle.
“No one hates you.” I can’t believe she doesn’t realize that.
She drops her hands from her face, wipes her nose, and logs into her email. “Read it.”
I scroll down to Harris’s reply.
Angel Annie,
I tried to call you back but you didn’t answer.
Please don’t be mad but I started seeing someone after we met in Buffalo. We might move to Europe to study art history for a semester.
This doesn’t change how much I care for you and always have.
Please do whatever you need to do to be happy. You have my full support no matter what you decide.
Best,
Harris
Fiery anger settles into my gut with every word my eyes pass over. I read it again, punishing myself twice.
“Wait a minute, he has a girlfriend?” I say. “What a fucking asshole!”
“He didn’t when we met up,” Annie says. Defending him. Still.
“Yeah right. Then why didn’t he tell you before? Like, any time before today?” I demand.
“We kept missing each other on the phone.”
“Bullshit.”
“I called him back this morning,” Annie says through pooling tears. “Some girl answered and said he wasn’t around. Harris never called back after that. He only sent this email.”
“Did you reply?” I ask, trying to calm down so I don’t have a heart attack or aneurism.
“No.” Annie pulls a Kleenex from her pocket and blows her nose. Tissue fibers float in the light of the computer screen.
The screen saver pops on and the picture of me and Annie flashes by. A fiercely protective instinct hits me like a slap to the face, the same way it did when the idiot kids on our bus would tease Annie.
She takes a shuddery breath. “How can he call me ‘Angel Annie’ and then tell me he wants nothing to do with me?”
That is so like Annie. She’s pissed but refuses to call Harris any names based on Satan, the male anatomy, or bodily excretions. Right now those are the only words in my head.
“I thought he loved me,” she whispers.
I hand her the Kleenex box, wondering if this is the first time since high school that she’s ever been rejected by anyone.
Annie blows her nose. “I can’t have this baby knowing Harris wants nothing to do with it. Can I?”
“It’s late. I’m tired,” I say even though my insides are spinning like eggbeaters.
“But what should I do?” Annie asks.
I turn off the computer. “Go to bed.”
Annie nods and stands, zombie-like. She shuffles out of the office, hugging the tissue box to her chest.
***
Mom and I have been avoiding each other like mortal enemies since our fight at dinner yesterday, but Dad is acting like nothing happened. In the morning I catch a ride with him to work. I would’ve ridden my bike if it weren’t for the rain, and Dad has a photo shoot near Ridgecrest Hospital anyway. He lets me drive, warning me to take the crater-sized puddles easy so we don’t hydroplane.
“Only two weeks,” Dad says.
Two weeks until my seventeenth birthday.
“How do you feel about signing up for your driver’s test soon?” Dad asks.
“I’m so ready,” I say as I make a slippery left turn into the hospital parking lot and hit the brakes.
Dad cringes. “Good. I’ll make us an appointment.” He pats me on my shoulder and opens his door.
“Thanks for the ride.” I sprint into the hospital and squeak to the cafeteria in my black slip-proof shoes, the only thing keeping me from flying down the hall like it’s a water slide.
“Morning, Mel,” says Dexter.
“Hey, Dex.” I move into automatic prepping mode, having worked breakfasts for about a year now. I grab bowls, spoons, measuring cups, and baking mixes from the metal storage shelves.
“Did'ja have a good Fourth?” Dex asks, transferring smoking bacon from baking trays to serving bins while a couple other preppers work on the sausage and potatoes.
I pour eight cups of water into a bowl with the pancake mix. “It was fine. How about you?” I might like Dexter as a boss, but he’s not getting a soliloquy of my family drama.
“My brother came into town. But lemme tell ya, he almost caught himself on fire with these freakin’ huge fireworks he brought.” Dexter laughs. “True story!”
Dexter tells lots of “true stories” that I’m not positive happened in real life. They are entertaining.
I pass the pancake batter to Dexter who plops spoonfuls onto the heated flattop. Next I mix the scrambled eggs, which come off the delivery truck in a big tub of yellow liquid that makes me doubt my cooking morals.
“The Pin Wheel, that firecracker was called,” Dexter continues. “My brother, he sets that firecracker on the driveway and tells us all to back up. Well, doesn’t he light the wick right in its middle and I see smoke rising from Jimmy’s hair. So I grab the pitcher of lemonade and throw it at his head, hooeeee! Glad no one spiked it.”
“Nothing that exciting happened at our place,” I say, though I would have preferred singed eyebrows to my own celebration.
Soon the cafeteria is open for business and I take my place at the bacon and sausage station with a pair of tongs. You’d think a hospital would try to prevent heart attacks starting with the food, but fatty pig it is.
Time ticks by and the line of diners dwindles. The holiday decorations taped to the back wall catch my eye. Paper fireworks explosions and American flags attempt to give the windowless room a more festive atmosphere.
A very pregnant woman wobbles through the line, holding the hand of a little girl who’s holding the hand of a littler boy while she carries a breakfast tray.
“Bacon or sausage?” I ask the family.
“Tina, hold onto Mama’s skirt, she needs both hands.”
“Mommy, I don’t wanna eat here! I wanna eat McDonald’s!”
“We’re visiting Grandma. Now come on, be a good girl.” The woman holds her tray out to me. “Bacon, please.”
