by Deena Lipomi
“Mommy, Davie won’t hold my hand.”
The boy toddles off to a table of nurses who coo at how cute he is even though his pants are taking a dive. Another girl wearing a pink and purple headscarf, the same one I saw the other day, bends down to talk to the toddler. A woman rushes over to retrieve her, almost tripping over a chair and dropping her coffee. The nurses peek around for the owner of the toddler who is starting to yell.
That could be Annie, bulbously pregnant with people staring, wondering if she’s fit to take care of a baby when she’s so young herself.
My vision blurs as I watch the scene, anger flooding my senses so I can hardly stand upright. I hate Harris, hate him for doing this to Annie. I want to get him locked away so he can’t gallivant through Europe with his new girlfriend. I drop my tongs into the sausage tray and grip the edge of the serving station.
I can’t report Harris. I promised Annie I wouldn’t tell anyone and I can’t betray her trust.
It’s all I have left of her.
Chapter 12
“The rain sucks,” Kasey says through the static on her cell phone.
“Where are you going?” I stare out the living room window into the grey afternoon. I’d biked to and from work today and made it home just before the clouds opened up. Personally, I’m thankful for the break in the heat although the humidity is turning my hair into a puffball of frizz.
“Dude, didn’t I tell you? Mom said I could get a ferret. I’m on my way to the pet store. They have those rescued ones up for adoption.”
“Kasey, you’re obsessed.”
“Hey, no more than you were with Sal Malone, or now are with Devon!” she sings.
“I am not obsessed,” I say before hanging up.
I wonder if Devon will call tonight.
Mom comes into the kitchen oozing worry and exhaustion, her dirty blonde hair frazzled like my own ponytail.
“Melanie, have you talked to your sister today?” This is the most Mom’s spoken to me since our fight two days ago. It would’ve been nice if she apologized before giving me the third degree, but whatever. I shake my head and open the refrigerator.
“Dad said he got home early this afternoon and Annie was still in her room. She hasn’t come out all day,” Mom says.
I pull out a carton of fruit punch and pour myself a glass. “I was at work early this morning and I just got home like five minutes ago.”
“I’m worried about her,” Mom says. “She’s been keeping to herself a lot, which is understandable to a certain degree, but I really don’t like to see her shut up in her room all day.”
“What do you want me to say?” I chug my juice and set the glass on the counter. “Maybe she’s just tired and not feeling well.”
Mom sighs and rubs her face. Her black eye liner smudges to her cheeks. “I know, but try to talk to her tonight if you can. Please? I don’t like her being alone up there all day.”
I don’t like all the changes in Annie either, but how does Mom think I have the power to convince her of anything? Still, I say, “Fine,” because I can’t say what’s in my head. I turn to retreat to the living room.
“And Melanie?”
I pause.
“I know this is a strain on the whole family, so if you ever want to talk, you know you can come to me, right?” Her voice is different. Gentle. Concerned about me instead of my sister.
“Yes, Mom,” I say, easing up my tone, too, just as my cell phone rings in my pocket. I whip it out and attempt not to swoon when I recognize the number.
Mom’s eyebrows are raised when I answer. I must not be doing a good enough job of keeping a straight face.
“Hey, it’s Devon. Whatcha up to?”
“Oh, hey. Not much.” I turn away from Mom and make my way to the privacy of my bedroom.
“I was wondering if you’d eaten yet?” he asks.
“Dinner? No, not yet,” I say, closing my bedroom door and awaiting the inevitable.
“Do you want to get a pizza?”
My heart does its now familiar louder thump at the question. “Sure!”
“Cool,” Devon says, and he starts to say more but the home phone rings on my dresser.
I should just throw the thing out the window.
Except I have a bad feeling about who could be on the other end of the line. Someone who I don’t want to reach my sister. She must be ignoring his calls to her cell if he’s dialing the landline again.
“Hold on a sec,” I say to Devon, and before he can respond I leap for the phone on its third ring.
“Hello?” Sure enough, it’s the southern accent of evil Harris.
“I said not to call here,” I hiss, hang up, and return to my cell. “Devon? Sorry about that.” My words waver and I hate that Harris affects me like this. He makes me feel out of control when I’ve never even seen his face.
“No problem,” he says. “Everything OK?”
I try to control my voice with deep breaths and mental images of Devon’s smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll come get you in forty-five minutes if that’s all right?”
“Yes,” I say with certainty and we hang up. I grin stupidly into the dresser mirror, forcing myself back to an unshaken state. It takes the length of a long, cool shower to feel normal again and forget that Harris rattled me.
Half an hour later, my crazy hair is semi under control and I’m dressed in a denim skirt, blue t-shirt, and raspberry lip-gloss. My appearance must reek of Melanie’s-Trying-to-Look-Good because Mom latches onto me as soon as I’m downstairs.
“Are you going out?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing my purse.
She crosses her arms. “Who are you going out with?”
“Devon.”
“Where are you going?”
“For pizza.”
She nods once and says, “Be careful.”
“Be careful of what?” I challenge her.
Rain dumps from the sky, rattling against the windows. “Driving,” she says, gesturing outside. “Be careful driving.”
“We will be.” I stare down the street, willing Devon to hurry up before Mom can make things any more awkward.
“Have you talked to your sister like I asked?”
“No, I didn’t have time,” I say. “I’ll talk to her later. Devon’ll be here in a minute.”
Mom’s glare is more powerful than any words she could yell.
“What?” I say.
She just shakes her head.
“I know you want Annie and I to talk to you,” I say, “but when you act like this, can you blame us for keeping secrets?”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Secrets? Melanie –”
“If you keep hounding us – me – it doesn’t make me want to talk more.”
Mom pinches her lips together and turns away.
Devon pulls into the driveway in a sleek black truck.
“I’ve got to go,” I say with a sigh.
“Go,” Mom says. “Call if you’ll be out past nine.”
I run outside, holding a jacket over my head, feeling lucky that she didn’t ground me from going for being a jerk.
“Nice truck,” I say when I'm safely tucked beside Devon on soft leather seats. “I didn’t know you had your own wheels.”
“Thanks,” he says, beaming at me. “It’s my dad’s, really. But I’m saving for my own.”
“That’s why I’m working, too. For a car.”
“So, pizza’s cool?” he asks, touching my knee.
My leg tingles. “Sounds great.”
Pat’s Pizza Shack is packed for a Monday night. Devon orders for us (a medium pie with green peppers, mushrooms, and half pepperoni) and grabs two sodas from the cooler. We find a seat by the window and listen to Metallica booming from the speakers of the retro jukebox.
“How was work?” Devon asks, knotting his straw wrapper until it tears in two.
“It was fine. You know, the usual breakfast crowd
. How about you? What do you do at your dad’s shop?”
Devon talks and gestures excitedly about how he’s learning to work on cars. Not just the mechanics, but the bodies, too. “I could help you look for a car when you’re ready to buy one,” he says.
That’s when I see Justine with Samara and Chloe coming my way.
“Hey, Melanie,” Justine says as she swings her long blonde hair over her shoulder and stands over our table, her two friends right behind her. “How’s your sister?” Her voice is a little too sweet, especially since the only tone she’s ever used with me before is rude, annoyed, or indifferent.
Devon’s eyes are on me.
“Uh, she’s fine,” I say.
“Oh, well, that’s not what we heard. We heard she was sick,” Justine says. “Every morning.”
My stomach flips. I resist the urge to dump my soda down her shirt and run from the restaurant only because it would confirm their suspicions. So all I do is shrug.
“Yeah,” Samara says, more genuine than Justine. “Is she OK?”
“Um, why don’t you call Annie and ask her?” I ask.
“Annie won’t return my calls,” Justine says, calmer now, sadder. But is it an act? “She’s totally avoiding me.”
“What’s she hiding?” Chloe asks, pinning me to the booth with her stare.
Oh god, they know. My eyes burn and my hands shake against the table.
“What’s your problem?” Devon says to them, but I don’t want Justine to answer with the truth. He can’t hear it from her.
“Your new girlfriend hasn’t told you about her sister’s delicate condition?” Justine shakes her head and turns on her heel. The other girls follow. They sit in a booth kitty corner from us, Justine’s eyes like laser beams into my skull.
“Is Justine –” Devon starts, but I interrupt.
“I can’t stay here.”
“Here, take the keys,” Devon says, pressing them into my clammy palm. “Wait in the truck and I’ll get our pizza to go.”
I nod and dash by Justine, Samara, and Chloe before I can fully meltdown in the restaurant.
Somehow Annie’s friends know the truth. Soon, everyone will know. Annie will be teased again and I won’t know how to defend her about this, something so careless and wrong. I unlock the truck’s passenger side door and climb inside the cab, my insides a mess.
Ten minutes later Devon finds me huddled in my seat and trying not to cry.
“You forgot this.” He hands me my damp jacket and puts our pizza in the back seat.
“Thanks.”
Devon starts the truck, pulls out of the lot, and drives to the creek where he stops on the sandy bank at the edge of the park.
“This better?” he says. “Away from fake tans and too much perfume?”
I try to smile but burst into tears. So much for doing my make-up today. “I’m so sorry,” I say between sobs. “They used to be friends with Annie, but now…. And I didn’t even stick up for her.” The tears keep coming and I blow my nose into a paper napkin that Devon hands me. He waits patiently while I cry and cry.
“Do you know when I first wanted to ask you out?” Devon asks when my tears have slowed to a drip.
I sniff a response.
“Remember that day in Home Ec when Mrs. Brownson said we were making English Muffin pizzas?”
“Yeah.” I’d forgotten he was in my class last fall semester.
“I’d thought it was a pretty lame assignment. ‘Cause really, why make pizza when you can just order it from the Shack?” he asks.
I had other reasons for not liking the assignment, mostly because bagels make better at-home pizza shells than English Muffins due to the soggy factor.
“Then Mrs. Brownson tasted your sauce and said we all had to try it because you added extra spices or whatever –”
“It was just sugar, salt, oregano, and garlic powder,” I say. “With a pinch of basil.”
“Yeah, but you were the only one who could make that stuff taste good. Not even the teacher could.” Devon laughs. “For the rest of the semester, whenever we did a cooking assignment, the class always asked you how to doctor it up.”
“True,” I say. “Does that mean the way to a guy’s heart really is through his stomach?”
Devon rests his hand on mine. “It worked on me.”
I wipe my eyes. “What took you so long to ask me out?”
Devon stares into his lap. “I didn’t think you’d say yes. I was just the guy who helped you with your biology labs. You never seemed interested in me.”
“I’m interested,” I say.
“I’m glad.”
We’re quiet for a minute, both of us staring at our linked hands.
“Annie’s pregnant,” I whisper, and with the release of these words comes a wave of calm in my stomach.
“I kind of figured.” Devon shifts in the leather seat and waits for me to say more. “From what Justine said.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“It’s OK. It has nothing to do with you, really. Or me. Or us.”
“I don’t know how they found out,” I say. “She hasn’t told anyone.”
“Why wouldn’t Annie tell her friends?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Is that what was bothering you earlier? On the phone?” he asks. “You seemed kind of weird for a minute and I was afraid it was me.”
“No! No, it definitely was not you,” I say. “You made me – make me feel better.”
“Good,” Devon says, and reaches back to the grab the pizza box. “Still hungry?”
“Starving.” It smells delicious and I’m physically empty after my cry. Besides, how could I deny Devon his pizza after sauce was what brought us together?
By the time we’re done eating, the rain has stopped. The cab of the truck is muggy so I open the window. The sound of the creek lapping at the bank is peaceful. A pair of ducks quacks at each other as they swim by. The duskiness is turning into darkness, and the lights from the houses reflect in the water like floating silver ribbons. When I turn back around, Devon slides closer to me on the bench seat.
He kisses me softly on the lips.
“I couldn’t help it,” he says after he pulls away.
“Good,” I whisper.
He kisses me again. This time I kiss him back. His breath smells of tomatoes and pepperoni and his lips are warm.
I just had my first real kiss.
Weeks after my little sister got knocked up.
Devon moves back into his seat. “You look a little better.”
“There’s nothing more satisfying than good pizza and a good kiss.” Oh god, I hope that didn’t sound as stupid as I think it did.
Nope, it sounded worse.
Devon’s got a goofy grin on his face. “I better get you home.”
That’s the last place I want to go, but unless I’m up for Mom reporting me kidnapped by my bio lab partner, I have to comply.
When Devon pulls into my driveway, we kiss once more. Then twice. And then a third time.
I finally tear myself away from his lips, jump down from the truck, and splash into a puddle, a small one that barely chills my toes. I’m way too warm on the inside to be bothered by it at all.
Chapter 13
My heart is racing. It could be because I drank an entire pitcher of iced tea at work to stay awake after a sleepless night. Or because I biked home from the hospital in 90- degree heat. Maybe because I’m getting ready to surprise Devon with a visit at his dad’s auto shop.
Or it could be because I’m still thinking about last night’s kiss. Kisses.
(Who am I kidding? It’s all of the above.)
I step out of the shower into the steamy bathroom, wrap a towel around my body, and open the bathroom door.
“Oh, geez!” I jump, completely startled by my sister’s lurking presence.
“Sorry,” Annie says, putting her hands up in mock innocence. She’s wearing drawstring bl
ack shorts and a tiny tank top. I’d kill to look that cute without trying.
I step around her and aim for my room. “The bathroom’s all yours.”
“Are you meeting up with Devon?”
“Yeah. Kasey’s picking me up soon and we’re bringing him lunch at his dad’s shop. I’ve still got to make sandwiches.” I’m babbling as fast as my pulse is racing. Annie doesn’t care about the details. “Why?”
“No reason.” She disappears into the bathroom fog.
I dress in my standard loose tank and cut-offs outfit, but take the time to twist my hair up into two knots on top of my head. Maybe this qualifies as cute? At least my neck will stay cool and my hair won’t turn into a tumbleweed.
A minute later I’m in the kitchen, slicing open baguettes and whisking together mayo, sweet relish, and scallions for my special turkey sandwich sauce when I hear Kasey’s car pull up.
“Shoot,” I mutter, speeding up my lunch preparation process.
Three minutes later, I’m throwing pickles into a Tupperware container when Kasey starts honking her horn.
“Hold on!” I yell to no one.
Five minutes later, I’m packaging the meal in plastic wrap when my cell rings.
“Dude,” Kasey says when I answer, “what are you doing in there? Cooking for an army?”
“I had to shower after work,” I say. “Give me a minute.”
Kasey snaps her gum. “That was probably a good idea. Wash the sick person germs off of you. Giving Devon Ebola won’t make him want to ask you out again.”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll be right out.”
Kasey hangs up and I tuck my phone into my pocket, my food into a canvas tote, and my feet into my Birks.
“So is Devon your boyfriend now?” Annie asks from the stairs behind me.
“God, Annie, you have to stop sneaking up on me,” I say with a laugh.
She descends the rest of the way and waits for me in the hall, not laughing. “I didn’t mean to.”
I realize she’s right. Before there was no question when Annie was coming. Her chipper voice constantly filled the air with what she was doing, where she was going, and who would be where. Even her steps were filled with life, hopping down the stairs and dancing across the kitchen floor.
