by Deena Lipomi
I ignore her and open the door.
“Hi, Jo,” Devon says to Mom.
I have him trained well.
“Hi, Devon.” Mom picks up her magazine and mug of tea and rises from the couch. “Not too late now kids.” Her voice is a warning that I’m getting used to as I test her limits day to day.
“I know. Good night,” I say.
“Something smells awesome.” Devon walks into the kitchen. “Ooooooh!” He helps himself to a cookie from a heaping plate. “Delicious.” He looks so cute, licking crumbs off his fingers and reaching for another cookie. He’s not wearing his baseball hat so his messy hair falls over his ears and he’s wearing his baggy Ray’s Auto’s sweatshirt that makes him look warm and cozy.
“Milk?” I ask.
“Please,” he answers.
I pour him a glass and take it to the living room. Devon follows and sits beside me on the couch.
“Delicious.” Devon licks his fingers. “The perfect way to end the first day of school.”
“Why, thank you.” I flick on the TV to the food channel and he chugs his milk.
“Speaking of school, what went down with Justine after the last bell?” Devon asks.
I shift on the couch. I should want to tell him, to share everything with my boyfriend, but how I felt and acted and what those girls said to Annie is so embarrassing.
“Nothing that involves Justine is worth repeating,” I say.
“But the guys said my girlfriend is a warrior.” He squeezes my bicep.
I shift awkwardly. “Want another cookie?”
Devon takes my hand from the remote and looks at me all serious. “Mel, Annie's been pregnant since our first date.”
I cringe when he says it. I’ve never heard him say the words before. It’s a topic we’ve been avoiding for good reason. For my reasons.
“You didn’t have to hide it from me then and you don’t have to now.” He shifts on the couch, scratches his ear, and grips my hand tighter with his sweaty one. This conversation isn’t comfortable for him either but I can tell he’s forcing himself through a semi-rehearsed speech. “It’s pretty obvious it has something to do with what happened today. Don't you feel like you can talk to me about it yet?”
“I wouldn't be with you right now if I didn't.” My words fall flat and the TV narrator’s voice fills the air, talking about the proper way to prepare sea urchin for cooking.
“So…?” he says.
“What?”
“If you can talk to me, why aren’t you?”
“There’s nothing else to say.”
Devon scratches his nose. “You’re acting like something’s bothering you, so I think there is something else to say. Is there…another guy or something?”
“No!” I meet his squarely in the eyes. “No.”
“So it has nothing to do with that guy who was outside your house that one night over the summer?”
I thought Devon had forgotten about him. “He’s...nobody. No one to worry about. I told you, he had the wrong house.”
Devon squeezes his eyes shut. “Mel, I could tell you were lying about that then and I can tell you still are now. That’s what hurts the worst.”
“I can’t tell you. I wish I could,” I say, squeezing his hand tighter and hoping he can sense how much I wish everything about this conversation could go differently. Or that it didn’t have to happen at all.
“Does he have something to do with Annie?”
I look away. Devon isn’t dumb and might already suspect the truth. If he guesses right, will Annie blame me?
Devon finally lets go of my hands and backs into the side of the couch. “I’m glad we got together, Mel. I don't want to do anything to mess this up, but you can talk to me about the things you’re allowed to say, OK?”
“OK,” I say.
Devon sighs and closes his eyes.
I scoot closer to him and trace my finger down his jaw, flicking away a stray cookie crumb from his chin. “You make me very happy.” I feel myself blush as I say it. “You know that, right?”
His face softens.
“I wouldn’t be who I am today without you,” I say.
“Neither would I,” he says, and kisses me.
I bring my arms around his neck, pushing my lips against his, with a fleeting thought that Mom could come down the stairs any second. I need Devon to know how much I like him. I need to feel how much he likes me. I can’t let him leave with this bad feeling, this distrust, between us.
I don’t know how long we’re kissing before Devon’s hands reach under my shirt. He rubs my back with gentle strokes and the skin under his fingers melts from his touch. He unhooks my bra with one hand and grabs my chest with the other. My body buzzes from toes to my fingertips. I think how we should stop, how Mom might choose this moment to refill her herbal tea. Instead I lean in and kiss him even harder, pressing into his body until he moans into my ear. It’s so easy to get carried away, pulled into this good feeling where nothing else matters.
The lights flick on over the stairs.
“Shit,” I mutter and back away from Devon. He reaches over to pull down my shirt. Too late.
“It’s time for Devon to go,” Mom says.
I adjust my clothes, grab the cellophane wrapped plate of cookies and hand them to Devon. I can still feel the heat between us, the flush in my cheeks, the pulsing of my lips.
“Bye,” he whispers to me, and kisses my cheek while backing out the door.
“Bye,” I say reluctantly, and lock the door behind him.
Mom stands on the bottom step, watching me turn off the TV and the lights. When I go to the stairs, I meet her face-to-face.
“What?” I say.
She sighs. “Could you please keep the groping to a minimum when you’re under my roof?”
My face ignites with flames. I’d prefer never to hear my mother use the word grope again. That said, it isn’t only her word choice that pisses me off. “Would you prefer we hang out somewhere else?”
“I would prefer the two of you slow down all together.”
“Mom,” I say, my voice rising, “Devon and I have been together for almost three months.”
“Melanie, his hands were all over you. And keep your voice down – you’ll wake your sister.”
“This is really what this is all about, isn’t it? You’re paranoid I’m going to get pregnant. Especially since Annie was your perfect, trustworthy chosen angel and I wasn’t. Well, that’s part of why she got pregnant, Mom. Boys like Annie! They always have, they always will. Devon likes me – a boy finally likes me – so please don’t do anything to ruin this.”
“Melanie, I said keep your voice down.”
We both stand silently, neither of us moving until Mom finally relents.
“I do like Devon,” she says. “I just want to keep liking him.”
“Me, too,” I say.
***
“Mmm mmm mmm! Mel, you’ve outdone yourself this time,” Dexter says, chewing on a cookie from the batch I brought into work. He washes his hands and returns to whipping a huge pot of mashed potatoes.
“Thanks. The secret ingredient is orange zest.” I tie on my apron.
“Good choice. Who taught you to bake anyway?” he asks.
“No one, really.” The smell of potatoes and chocolate is making me hungry. I eat another cookie. “The food channel. My mom’s pretty good too so I just picked stuff up.”
“Ah ha, so you have a natural knack,” Dexter says. “You should go to culinary school.”
“It’s so expensive, though,” I say. Plus super stereotypical for the fat girl to go to a foodie school, right? There’s no way I’d say that out loud since Dexter is at least three times as big as I am.
“You’ve applied to colleges?” he asks.
“No.”
“Whatcha been doin’? You could find scholarships and all sorts of money if you take a look.”
“I’m a middle class white girl. Who’s going to
give me any money to go to school?” I ask, drying my hands.
“You never know ‘til ya look,” Dexter says. “My pops said that’s what I shoulda done when I was your age – gone to cooking school – but I told him I wanted to be a lion tamer. Even spent some of my hard earned moola on applications to schools that specialized in zoology. It wasn’t ‘til I graduated from community college that I went back to school for restaurant and hotel management. Then, voila! I ended up here.”
“Do you wish you’d gone to culinary school?” I ask as I pull a pot of serving utensils from the metal storage shelf.
“Sometimes,” he says, “but I like being a manager too. I get to boss people around.”
I smile and walk out to the line. Dexter’s right; I have nothing to lose by applying to a few culinary schools no matter what the size of my waist. I could try some restaurant management schools too. It’s a much better plan than no plan. Or than lion taming.
The girl with the pink and purple headscarf traces the paper pumpkins, witches, and ghosts taped to the far wall. Someone about my age follows the little girl from picture to picture, giggling at something the younger girl says. Then the scarfed girl begins to cough. It weakens her so much she has to sit down.
Life’s too short to do something I don’t enjoy just because I’m scared of commitment and crippling student loans.
Right?
***
When I get home, I change out of my meatloaf-and-cheese-scented work clothes and head straight for Dad’s home office. He’s sitting at his desk, deeply engrossed in sheets of negatives that will soon take him to his developing room in the basement.
“Can I use the computer?” I ask him.
“Sure, sure.” He doesn’t look up.
I do a couple searches for culinary schools and scroll through the results. There’s a ton. I turn to see if Dad is paying any attention. He’s not. Usually I’d be thrilled with the privacy, but I’m too excited to keep to myself.
“Dexter gave me the idea that I should look at culinary schools,” I say and click on a link to Pennsylvania College of Technology. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Yeah Mel, that’d be great. You’re a great baker.” He holds a sheet of negatives up to the light. “You’re a lot like your grandmother that way.”
It’s more of a response than I expected. I smile at the compliment, especially since my late grandmother made the best pizza ever. I never thought I could like anchovies until she baked them into a puffy dough with olives and capers.
“Thanks, Dad.” I read about the application process for a few colleges and fantasize about the menu I’d offer in my first restaurant.
A few minutes later, Annie’s figure fills the doorway in her white terry cloth pajamas.
“I have to show you something,” she says quietly.
At first I think she’s talking to Dad, but her eyes zero in on me.
“Can you wait a minute?” I ask. “I’m looking up culinary schools – ”
“Please.” Her voice shakes. “I really need you now.” She steps in closer and I see a streak of blue paint below her right eye, like an angry tear.
I can’t remember that last time she said she needed me.
Dad must think the same thing. He sets down his photos. “Annie, sweetie, are you all right?”
“I just need Melanie,” she says. “I’m OK, Dad.”
I jump up from the chair so fast it spins. “I’ll be right back,” I say to Dad.
“Girls?” he calls.
I keep walking before he can ask anything else. Annie obviously doesn’t want to talk to him.
We’re not fast enough. The door opens quickly.
“Girls?” Dad says again, frowning so the lines in his forehead run deep. He holds onto the doorknob as if he needs it for strength. “You know that if anything’s wrong, or if you need help with something, you can come to me or your mother, right?”
“We’re fine, Dad,” I say.
Annie plasters a big smile on her face. “Yeah, we’re fine. We’ll come get you if we need you.”
Dad knocks his hand on the doorframe three times, nods once, and says, “All right. Promise you’ll holler if you need me.”
“We promise,” I say.
Dad nods once more and watches us walk through the kitchen. When we reach the stairs, Annie’s face falls.
“Come to my room,” she says, so I do.
Upstairs, Lana Del Ray sings from Annie’s speakers and a splotchy blue painting sits on her easel over a pile of newspapers. I’m glad she’s painting like the Annie from before, but it’s a depressing picture that looks like rain and tears.
She thrusts a postcard in my face. “Read this.”
A clear turquoise body of water meets a white pebble beach. The words Monaco, destination d’exception! are printed beneath the picture. The back of the card is covered with thin, choppy script.
Angel Annie,
I just wanted to say hi. Hope all is well with whatever decision you made.
Harris
The postcard crinkles between my fingers, my inner-Hulk coming out. What part of “Leave Annie alone” doesn’t this asshole understand? He’s probably feeling all safe in Europe, knowing the cops can’t reach him if I press charges.
“Can you believe him?” Annie says. “Calling me Angel Annie after he’s run away? And a postcard? What would his stupid girlfriend say if she knew what he was writing to me? I wonder if she even knows he’s a father. I can’t believe him!”
I hand the postcard back to her before I can destroy it. Not that it matters. The damage is already done.
“He’s a complete asshole,” I say.
“I know,” she says while staring at his writing. “I know that now. God, why did I sleep with him?”
I don’t want Annie to hate herself, just him. “I’m sure he…said all the right things.” I think about making out with Devon, how easy it is to get caught up in everything, even while knowing Mom or Dad could’ve come downstairs any second the other night.
Annie flops onto her bed and the music dies down between songs. “It just hurts so much.”
Her honesty and sadness hurt my heart, too. I put my hand to my chest and feel it beating, making sure it’s not broken for my sister. I wish I could tell Annie that Harris has caused pain between me and Devon too, something relatable because I can’t think of anything to say that will stop her pain. Or mine.
“When he didn’t return my phone calls,” she says between sniffles, “I told myself to stop thinking about him for good, stop pretending he’d change his mind. Mel, I can’t do it. I can’t stop wishing every night that he’ll come back to me and the baby. Every night I think about it until I wish I could stab my brain with a fork to make the hope go away.”
My heart beats stronger under my palm. “You can do this on your own,” I say, because it’s true and she has to. “You'll have the baby and it will be perfect and you’ll make another couple happy, just like you said you were meant to.”
Annie wipes her eyes and nods.
This is why Annie and I grew apart. It seems so ridiculously obvious now. Not because of our friends or interests or popularity, but because Annie is a better person than I am. She’s someone who lets people in despite years of teasing, and I’m the one who turns to food and the kitchen, too afraid to try.
Shit.
“I could never do what you’re doing,” I say, almost choking on the words and realization.
“You could,” Annie says, sitting up now. “You could if you had to.” She tosses the postcard into her wastebasket so it sits among tear-soaked tissues.
But she’s wrong. I’m sure of it. My little sister is so much older than me in every way except the year she was born.
Chapter 20
“You have until December first for three of these applications,” says Mr. Duvai, my guidance counselor. It’s the Monday before Thanksgiving and I’m stuck in my mandatory student-counselor meeting so we can assess my
future prospects. “I suggest you spend a great deal of your five-day weekend writing application essays.”
“Yes, sir.” I swallow over the knot in my throat. For all my annoyance at his lecture, he’s right. After deciding to apply to three culinary schools and a community college last month (just in case I’m not as qualified to cook as I hope) I’ve barely started the applications. The problem is now that I know what I want to do, I’m afraid I won’t get into the cooking schools. I can’t fail if I don’t try, right?
Devon applied to five colleges that have mechanical engineering programs, all in different states from my culinary school choices, all places he decided on before the two of us took our first canoe ride together. I’m not applying to San Diego with Kasey, either. College will be like starting all over again, which is liberating.
And terrifying.
“The applications will be done by next Monday,” I say to my counselor. “I promise.”
Mr. Duvai doesn’t look convinced when I say goodbye and exit his office, almost stumbling into Kasey.
She throws her arm over my shoulders. “How’d the meeting go?”
I shrug to keep my college fears to myself, those of acceptance and failure. “He told me to get my applications in.”
“He gets paid for that? I’ve been telling you that for weeks,” Kasey says, escorting me down the hall. “You feeling all right?”
“Yeah, just stressed about doing the apps,” I say.
“I’ll help you if you want me too,” she says.
The only way she could help would be to guarantee me acceptance to Penn College of Technology, and that Devon and I will stay together no matter how many miles separate our colleges. But I appreciate her offer anyway.
***
“It’s kicking!” Annie says. Her voice is bright even though her stomach is making people stare as we walk to my car at the end of the school day.
I pull my hat down over my ears against the cold November wind. On top of the freezing temperatures and threats by my guidance counselor, the grey sky is making me even grouchier.
