A smile teased at Pearl’s lips. Clara pressed her advantage.
“What do you say, Pearl? Come with me to Carolina. Join my crew. Be my pirate brother.”
The sun slid glittering pink across the river, gilding the horizon in layers of light like silk. It looked like treasure.
Pearl’s chin tipped down as she studied her boy’s clothing. She smoothed one hand over the fabric of her waistcoat with an expression that settled somewhere between distress and wonder. Her silence felt heavy like the prelude to disappointment, and Clara felt an unexpected pang in her chest.
But then Pearl’s hand was in Clara’s, her eyes flashing like sunrise and steel swords and stolen kisses.
Clara held her breath until Pearl gave her answer.
“I say you’d better get used to calling me Jack.”
* * * * *
AND THEY DON’T KISS
AT THE END
BY
NILAH MAGRUDER
Maryland, 1976
She listened to the sizzle of the neon sign overhead and pulled her jacket tighter around her in the early-autumn chill. Her left shoulder was weighed down by the pair of roller skates her parents had bought her for Christmas, the pair she’d hinted and begged and cried for, a jaunty light brown with slick red wheels. She tilted her head and searched the street for an untidy mop of curly dark hair poised atop a skinny frame.
Because if she saw Vince Ramirez anywhere near the skate rink tonight, she was taking her tail straight home.
Dee’s friends knew she brooked no nonsense. She wasn’t about to let herself get caught in some black-teen The Parent Trap by nosy, overly concerned friends who thought they knew what she needed better than she did.
But Lori had promised her Vince wouldn’t be there. Apparently he’d stopped coming to the rink just after she had. Maybe she was the only reason he came out skating at all, but she wasn’t thinking about that. She was just keeping an eye on all the other kids laughing and running into the rink for Skateblast Saturday Fun Night.
So far, what Lori had told her looked to be true. The rink was safe. It was hers again.
She stood a little straighter. A shock of nerves ran through her when she saw Lori making her way up the street with MaryAnn and Roger behind her. But Vince wasn’t with them.
“Sorry,” said Lori with a big grin as she wrapped her arms around Dee’s shoulders. “You been waiting long?”
Dee shrugged. “Not really.”
“This fool,” said MaryAnn, and she elbowed the tall boy leaning over her like a wilting willow, “changed his shirt about five times.”
“Hey,” said Roger, who was fingering the edges of his fro even as he spoke. “You said you like your man looking sharp.”
The two began to bicker. Lori rolled her eyes and gave Dee a conspiratorial grin. Dee laughed, and the two of them headed arm in arm up to the counter to pay their admission. They were still early. The floor was only starting to fill up. In an hour it’d be full of gliding bodies, all a blur under the strobing, tinted lights.
Dee and Lori sat side by side on a bench. Dee pulled the red laces of her skates snug, flexed her ankles and toes and stood. Three weeks she had been avoiding the rink. She hadn’t gone so long without skating since the previous summer when she’d caught bronchitis.
She stepped onto the slick surface with practiced ease, one foot and then a push with the other. She was a long way from the tiny girl she used to be who couldn’t get onto the rink without clinging to the wall. She was already pacing ahead of Lori, Roger and MaryAnn, but she didn’t look behind her. They’d catch up.
She let her momentum carry her into the bend at the end of the rink and then crossed the right foot over the left to glide through the turn. She’d missed this. Skating was so much easier than avoiding Vince. They didn’t have any classes together, thank God, but he seemed to be everywhere anyway. She’d stopped going to the library, too, because she didn’t want to take unnecessary chances. Which meant most days she got through school as quickly as possible and then booked it for the bus home.
But Vince was a good guy, a really good guy, so he wasn’t trying too hard to seek her out. It was probably driving him nuts that he didn’t know why she’d cut him off and wouldn’t explain. She couldn’t remember a single day since they’d met that they weren’t talking in between classes or hanging out in the library at lunch or hanging out after school.
Her dad had asked last Sunday why he wasn’t over watching American Bandstand with them, which she thought was the greatest injustice. He was always fussing about that walking-stick boy with the bad haircut hanging around their house like he didn’t have anywhere better to be—and he was full of it, because a couple times Dee had run upstairs and caught them talking about basketball enthusiastically when she came back down. “Well, at least he’s not over here eating all our food like usual,” her dad had said, even though he was always the one who reminded mom to set an extra plate.
Lori and MaryAnn reached her at the far end of the rink. “Where’s Rodge?” Dee asked, perhaps a little too quickly. She tried to look nonchalant, but Lori had already detected the small note of panic in her voice.
“Some of the guys showed up,” said Lori, and made eyes at the lockers. They could plainly see Roger at the center of a group of boys, laughing and elbowing each other. Vince was still not present. “Girl, you should just move on,” Lori continued. “Look, there’s Tony. He’s so tall and fine. Go see if he wants to skate with you.”
“I don’t want to skate with anybody,” said Dee with a bright, overly sweet smile. “I got you guys.”
MaryAnn laughed. “Uh-huh! That’s not what you were saying a month ago. It was just Dee and Vince.” She said it in a melodic, drawn-out way, brushing Dee’s shoulder with her own, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Vince and Dee,” Lori added from Dee’s other side, mirroring MaryAnn and ignoring Dee’s scoff. “I’m surprised you remember our names.”
“I still don’t get why you’re mad at Vince,” said MaryAnn. “What he do?”
Dee sighed, because she didn’t know how to answer that. Because Vince hadn’t done anything. And because MaryAnn was always one step behind, a little out of sync. She didn’t have to explain these things to Lori. Somehow, Lori always just knew what the problem was without Dee having to tell her.
“It’s not about what Vince did,” said Lori. Dee could feel the playful smirk on her face. “It’s about what Dee did.”
MaryAnn leaned in. “What’d you do, Dee?”
“You didn’t see them holding hands during the couples’ skate?” said Lori. “They were skating all close and slow, the lights were dark and we were just watching, and then outta nowhere Dee just let go and took off in the middle of the song. You didn’t see all that?”
“Nooo!” gasped MaryAnn. “You did that, Dee?”
“Man, shut up, Lori,” said Dee, and she shot ahead of them. She could hear Lori and MaryAnn calling after her, but she rounded the next bend, zigzagged smoothly between other skaters and didn’t look their way.
It reminded her of last time. She and Vince were in their own world, but she’d come out of it when she heard Lori and Roger’s boys snickering behind them.
And yet, even now, she wondered why she had let go of Vince’s hand. Was she embarrassed? Was she not ready for what their friends would say about them? What they would expect? Was there even a way to prepare for any of that?
Dee met Vince Ramirez almost a year ago, when he showed up in her biology class at the beginning of the spring semester. Dee and her classmates had been curious about the Filipino kid starting classes in the middle of the year. But he’d found his stride and fit in seamlessly, and soon he became background like most of the boys in Dee’s class.
A few weeks later, Vince showed up at Saturday Fun Night at the local rink. The DJ played hits by Donna Sum
mer, James Brown, and Ecstasy, Passion & Pain, sodas were free with a slice of pizza, and Dee and her friends went practically every week. Roger invited him. They had become friends, because Roger was friends with everyone and it was only a matter of time.
“Hey, Dee, you met Vince?” said Roger. “He likes Soul Train, too!”
“So?” Dee laughed. “Everybody likes Soul Train.”
But they talked. About the Bee Gees, Archie Bell & the Drells, and Chaka Khan. About Soul Train and American Bandstand. And that Monday, in biology, they kept talking. The following summer was a blur of poring over vinyls in the record store, riding their bikes to the library, the newsstand and the snowball stand next door. They chewed candy and popcorn while Dee told Vince about the novel she’d read that week and Vince showed off his stack of comics. And every Saturday night, there was skating.
Until three weeks ago, at least, when she’d let go of Vince’s hand and left him on the rink floor like a jilted lover, which was ridiculous because they were only friends. But there had been laughter and whoops from several mouths as Dee skidded off the rink floor.
The sounds followed her like the bays of disgruntled spectators from the box seats, robbed of a show. An older, smarter girl would have been more inconspicuous, and then perhaps everything would be all right now. Dee could only wish to have that level of charm and sophistication.
She wished she could be like Elizabeth Bennet. Her English class read Pride and Prejudice last semester. She’d loved the book so much she’d bought her own secondhand copy that she’d found in the Salvation Army store. She told Vince all about it, about how headstrong and clever Lizzie Bennet was, but Vince didn’t really care about old-timey English literature. Dee liked how independent and gracious Lizzie was. She liked the reserved and distinguished Mr. Darcy. She liked that their romance was driven by intellect, conversation and art.
She liked that there was no kissing.
She had never seen the appeal of kissing, not after MaryAnn had kissed her first boyfriend at the end of sixth grade and told half the block about it, not when Dee had had her first kiss freshman year, at one of Nadia Boone’s weekend basement parties full of beer and disco.
That had been a whole year before Vince moved to town. Kevin Campbell was sweet, but the kiss had been messy and wet and Dee had been very miserably aware of every second of it. It had gone on forever, and not in a good way.
Dee had giggled with Lori much too loudly about it not ten minutes later. She’d locked eyes with Kevin standing just a few feet away, realized he’d heard every word and she didn’t even feel bad about it.
Boys had tried to kiss her after that. When they stopped her to chat in the halls, or leaned into her at parties, she always found some excuse to slide away and go hide between her girlfriends. None of them seemed to care that she’d laughed about kissing Kevin right in his face—not even Kevin. He’d even invited her to go to the carnival with him a few months later. They went together with their friends, watched other couples laughing hand in hand, arm in arm, and Dee had never felt so outside of her own skin.
Lori and MaryAnn were into trashy romance novels. They devoured them like penny candy. They’d loaned a couple to Dee but Dee always cringed when it got to the steamy parts—or worse, she laughed. Those moments always took her right out of the story—and considering they were the story, she got taken out pretty quick.
Was this what romance was supposed to be? Was this all there was? And if that was the case, why didn’t Dee want the same kind of romance as Lori and MaryAnn—and pretty much every other girl she knew? They were seventeen and already MaryAnn and Lori seemed to know so much more about sex than she did.
One time MaryAnn had shown her and Lori a porno. They’d watched it at MaryAnn’s house late one night while her mother was working at the hospital and her dad was passed out in the living room with a couple of beers and the news still playing. They’d watched it in MaryAnn’s room with the volume turned low.
Lori and MaryAnn had giggled and laughed and gasped, while Dee squirmed. Halfway through she’d got up to go to the bathroom. Instead she’d sat down with MaryAnn’s dad and watched NBC’s Saturday Night.
She wondered if Lizzie Bennet would suffer through a porno. She couldn’t imagine it. She also couldn’t imagine Lizzie laughing about kissing Kevin Campbell (well, maybe she would) or leaving Vince Ramirez alone in the middle of the rink.
Lori had suggested that maybe Dee wasn’t into guys. Lori wasn’t, and sometimes she linked fingers with other girls at the rink. Dee didn’t think it was about boys and girls. She didn’t know how to explain that she preferred to have no preference at all, and so she said nothing.
“What’s with you, Dee?” Beverly Henderson had once asked her. “Don’t you like anybody?”
Sure, she did. Dee liked plenty of folks, but she knew that’s not what Beverly was really asking. What was with her, dodging away from perfectly good boys in school hallways, grinning at them under the rink’s colorful lights and then skating away? Teasing them with full lips and long legs when she could be kissing them? Dee grimaced at the very thought.
Later, she’d caught Beverly calling her a prude once in the east stairwell, but Dee didn’t mind. Maybe that was what she was. She didn’t know what else to call it. Maybe there was no word for the way she felt.
Sometimes Dee tried to force herself to get used to the idea. She’d picture herself fooling around with Vince, kissing, letting their hands roam over one another. And she didn’t care. Weren’t you supposed to care? Weren’t you supposed to want it? Why have sex if you didn’t want to?
It wasn’t just about Vince—it wasn’t really about him at all. It was about Dee. She was pretty sure she liked Vince—pretty sure she really liked him, but what did that mean?
Why had she let go of Vince’s hand? Because she wasn’t ready for whatever was coming next. Because what if he wanted more? And what if she wasn’t interested in giving it? Because letting go of his hand had seemed like a better option than him letting go of hers—because that was what would happen. The future—their future—loomed in front of her like an insurmountable wall, and she wasn’t sure there was any way over it.
As she made another lap, Dee looked across the rink to the low wall on the other side. Roger was off the floor again; a few more of his buddies had just arrived. She didn’t recognize all of them, but she recognized the one with a mop of curly dark hair, slim legs in corduroy bell-bottoms and a sports jacket he could practically swim in.
He turned his head, and she felt it like a lightning strike when their eyes met. Lori and MaryAnn were at her side not five seconds later, and she had to commend their response time.
“He’s not supposed to be here,” said MaryAnn. “I told Rodge—”
But Roger looked just as surprised and embarrassed as her friends did now. “We didn’t know, Dee,” said Lori. “I swear!”
Dee leaned away, and with the scrape of wheel on wood, she left them behind.
She could leave. But she’d have to squeeze by Vince to do it. Then...she could wait, just until he hit the floor and then she’d skate off, grab her shoes and be out the door before he’d made his first lap.
But she had left him that way once already. Her palm tingled at the memory. She had a feeling taking off that way again would sever whatever connection they still had. She’d be turning her back on the past year forever.
She wheeled toward the lockers. Vince was doing a poor attempt at pretending he was talking to his boys. He was still watching and saw the look she gave him. And then he was separating from his friends and hurrying to put on his skates.
Both her hands were tingling now. No, they were sweaty. Her body was warmed up from the lights and countless laps around the rink. “Jazzman” was blasting from the speakers, one of her favorite songs to skate to. As Vince crept up beside her, she used the familiar upbeat rhythm and Carol
e King’s soulful voice to give her strength.
“Hey,” said Vince, so quietly under the music that it was easy to miss. Dee said hi in return.
And then, silence...well, save the music from the speakers, and the sound of dozens of small plastic wheels turning around the polished hardwood floor, and laughter and chatter from every other person in the building. She had to say something, but every time she gathered up the words to speak, she felt the silence pressing closer and let the words go. The truth was, she just didn’t know what to say.
“I should’ve said this sooner,” said Vince suddenly. “I just didn’t know how, and I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me. But I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For, you know, last time. For taking your hand. I should’ve asked first, asked if...if you were okay with it.”
Yeah, darn right you should’ve, thought Dee, but she felt a pang of guilt, as well. The truth was, she couldn’t remember who’d grabbed whose hand first. And she couldn’t remember not enjoying it. “Well, it wasn’t all you,” she mumbled.
The song changed over to “Reasons” by Earth, Wind and Fire. They glided in silence. Dee listened to the rotation of their wheels on the polished wood surface, that soft, reassuring sound as she searched for words.
Before she found them, Vince said, “I read it.”
Dee glanced at him. “You read what?”
“Pride and Prejudice.”
Dee gaped. She nearly tripped and slowed to regain her balance. Vince slowed with her. He was looking at her with concern.
She looked back at him, wide-eyed. “You can read?”
Vince pushed her shoulder lightly. “Shut up.” He shrugged. “We weren’t hanging out, and I didn’t have anything better to do.”
“What’d you think?”
He shrugged again. “It was long. But I liked it.”
All Out--The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages Page 4
