THE TROUBLE WITH KISSING YOU

by Gen Phan

  “And how will you know?” She asked.

  “I just would. There would be a vibe between us. I can’t explain it Maria… but I feel like we're meant to be together. ”

  “And you can tell all that from some sloppy five second kiss in the dark?”

  “Yes. There's no way a kiss could feel like that without it meaning something more."

  Maria face palmed, then after a few seconds looked up at me wih a deadpan expression that gave nothing away.

  “Mike, Mike, Mike.”

  “Maria, Maria, Maria?” I replied.

  “Fine. I’ll do it. But you owe me. Big time.”

  I reached out squeezed her hand. “Anything. Just name it!”

  * Chapter 5 (Maria)

  Anything. Name it.

  As that statement tanked like a lead balloon in my stomach, I wanted to pull out my own hair and scream at him. Perhaps even slap him across the face and probably end all that with a good hard shaking for good measure. Because it’s not anything. It’s far from anything.

  I wanted to shout, “I’m sitting right in front of you.” So much for the so-called vibe he would apparently feel. The words bubbled in the back of my throat and I was left with no other option but to take a giant bite out of a Snickers bar and swallow it down.

  “So will you do it?” He asked, as if he hadn’t rubbed enough salt in the wound already.

  So I do what I always do. I nodded, my heart snaps a little, I replied with the affirmative, a brick feels like it falls into the pit of my stomach and I smiled at him, tears feel like they run down the back of my throat, even though that’s not even possible.

  Pathetic.

  I just felt pathetic right now. Sad and embarrassing. I embarrass myself.

  **

  Monday morning at breakfast and I got a message from Mike before I even woke up.

  Today’s the day. Keep your eyes peeled. :)

  Smiley face. I’m glad he had a smiley face . I did not. .On the contrary, it was far from smiley.

  I walked over to my cupboard and pulled out a pair of jeans, sneakers and a shirt that had “Welcome to Mauritius” written across it. Not fashionable, whatever. I liked shirts from around the world, they reminded me that there were places out there beyond these four walls and the manicured lawns of this picture perfect suburb.

  Do you know that they have ‘Best Pavement Awards’ here? Those with the most perfectly topiaried tress and best rose bushes are envied by all. This place oozes a sort of perfection that is both nauseating and worrying. Think Desperate Housewives without the desperation. Because everyone that lives here seems to like it. Love it. I am convinced there’s something far more sinister at play. Some kind of Stepford mind-control that keeps all the woman pretty, cooking and doing the laundry with a smile (except here, they smile while they pay someone else to do the laundry).

  Shirt on…time for my hair. My hair is short, shaggy and didn't need styling, so I ran a brush through it and let it fall where it wanted. A mysterious mascara seemed to have found it’s way onto my dressing room table, clearly my mother bought it for me. She insisted I wear it. “We Glover woman are unfortunately blessed with light brown eye lashes. Makes us look like ghosts.” She and my sister smeared the stuff on so thickly that sometimes it looked like they had spiders legs sticking out of their eyeballs…

  And then I think of Mike. Suddenly I wondered if wearing mascara might make me appear more ‘girly’? I picked the stuff up, pulled the lid off and gave my lashes a quick coat. But in seconds my eyes felt like they were on fire. I’m not used to this crap. I walked downstairs and my mom immediately sighed at me, she despairs at my wardrobe you see.

  “Maria, do you have to wear that? What about the nice top I bought you last week?”

  Her disapproving eyes are on me.

  “The pink one? The one that looks like if I wear it, my IQ will plummet by ten points?”

  “But it’s just like your sister’s.”

  “My point exactly,” I said sitting down at the breakfast “nook” as she called it.

  “Besides, we’re not six anymore so you can’t expect us to dress the same.” My mom used to love the fact she had twins. We wore matching outfits everywhere.

  My mom simply rolled her eyes at me as if she gave up. I wished she would give up, but she never does.

  A few moments later my sister flounced down to the table wearing a very swishy skirt and texting as she walked. It’s as if she has eyes at the top of her forehead so she can see where she’s going while she texted. My dad was reading his newspaper, no doubt scanning the business section, looking for crashing, burning businesses that he can snatch up and sell. I’m not sure of the details, but I know he buys failing businesses, then fixes and sells them. And he makes a small fortune doing it, it would seem. Our house (not to mention my mother and sister’s penchant for spending) is a standing testament to this fact. It’s like a shiny beacon of the wealth that is us. Our house is obscene with six bedrooms and more lounges than can ever be occupied even if a small African village full of people moved in. It towers above all the other lavish homes in the area. It basically pulls its big fat bejeweled middle finger at them all and laughs in their upper middle class faces.

  My parents liked to be the best, the richest and the ultimate Jones’s to keep up with. Me, I don’t give a shit about that kind of thing and I certainly don’t take advantage of my father’s credit cards like my mother and sister do.

  My mom put a plate down in front of me. “What’s this?” I looked down at the plate. The stuff in question looked like it may have been egg in a past life, but it seemed to be the wrong color. Wrong texture too. In fact, on second thoughts, the stuff didn’t even look like food.

  “Egg white omelet with kale,” she cooed like she was pleased with herself, which I know she was. She’s always on the latest diet, she goes on diets before anyone else even knows about them, perhaps before they've even been invented. She’s a telepathic dieter. Last week we were gluten free, the week before that dairy free. I’m not sure what this is, what we’re supposed to be free of this week.

  “High protein.” She popped a book down on the table, a diet book. “And kale is the new super food.”

  I heard my dad grunt from behind the paper, he’s a man of few words, especially when it comes to my mother’s cooking. But then again, who isn’t.

  My sister and my mother started to discuss the benefits of yogi berries and soy protein while I tried to chew and swallow the strangely sloppy, yet surprisingly crunchy thing that was currently taking up space in my mouth.

  “It’s delicious, Mom,” my sister said. I think she only said that because of its low calorie content and the fact that she can go to school and tell all her friends about her new cool diet, or whatever else they talk about. I would hate to be locked in a room with them. We all ate in silence for a while until my sister suddenly jumped up dramatically.

  “My turn,” She practically shouted and grabbed mom’s car keys. She then proceeded to spring across the room like an advert for long life energizer batteries. My sister always seemed so perky, unnaturally so if you ask me, sometimes I wonder if she has a secret crack habit. Her excessive perkiness is always annoying, and I also can’t help wondering how it is that we came out of the same womb. It’s hard to believe we came out same person, let alone bodily organ.

  We all piled into the car, my mother drives a ludicrously over-priced SUV and she can barely see over the steering wheel. It’s not like she needed one. She basically drives us to school and back, to the hairdresser, and shopping center. It’s not like she’s driving over rocks and through mud to buy groceries. The most off-roading she’d ever done was parking on the pavement outside the shopping center during the Christmas shopping rush. There was no parking and she mounted a pavement. She thought it was very exciting.

  “Ease her out,” my mom said, looking nervous and pale, despite the six layers of self-tan.

  “I am”

 
My sister jerked the car into reverse and my head bashed against the backseat.

  “You’re not.”

  “I am,” she screeched.

  “Look where you’re reversing. Check your mirrors!”

  “I am. I am. You’re making me freak out, Mom, just stop.”

  “Stop telling me I’m freaking you out!”

  And the bickering started. This is why I hated it when it was her turn to drive. We both passed our learners a few months ago and have been taking lessons, some more successfully than others. It seems my sister’s so-called multi-tasting ability does not extent to the driving of vehicles, it seems she is unable to drive and think.

  “So where did you go on Saturday night?” Mackenzie looked at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Stop looking at your sister when you drive, focus on the road,” my mother sounded like she was bordering on a panic attack.

  “I am. I am.”

  I rolled my eyes hoping she wouldn’t see. “I left. Party was boring.”

  “Mike was looking good.” Her tone went all lilty and it had a distinct teasing quality to it. She always teased me about Mike.

  “Stop talking like that in front of me.” My prudish mother feigned shock, as though she doesn’t know that my sister can be a total slag sometimes.

  “I wouldn’t know.” I shrugged deliberately, trying to downplay the whole thing. My insides wewre on fire though and no amount of casual, deliberate shrugging would change that.

  “I don’t get you guys. How can you just be friends. It’s weird.”

  “It’s not weird.”

  As a stop street approached, my sister slammed on breaks so hard that we all rocked back and forth violently. She seemed to be oblivious though and turned with an ernest look on her face. “Maria. You can tell us if you’re gay.”

  “What?” My mother screeched and turned to look at me. Now there were two faces staring at me through the partition.

  “Are you gay?” My mother looked even more panicked. Frightened even.

  My sister placed a reassuring hand on my mothers shoulder, “It’s okay, Mom. It’s . It’s totally acceptable now. Hey, Maria?”

  My mother held her head like it was the end of the word. A gay soccer playing daughter.

  “I knew that soccer was no good for you.” Just as I thought it, she said it. So predicable. I sighed.

  “I’m not gay, Mom. Mike and I are just friends.”

  “Are you sure?” She still looked terrified and for a moment I thought of telling her I was gay and watching her world spin out and her expectations of me crash and burn even more. Watching her call prayer groups and pray for my depraved soul to be saved.

  My sister looked at me with a mocking eye. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m just kidding. Of course she’s not gay, she’s just secretly in love with Mike.” My sister smiled at me, it was cruel and turned my guts. My cheeks flamed with heat and I hung my head. I couldnt' look nonchalant right now, no matter how hard I tried.

  I felt like I was dying inside.

  Chapter 6 - Mike

  "Someone walked up to you and just kissed you?" Brett stared at me with eyes that looked like they were about to pop out of his head and roll across the floor.

  "Yip."

  "Damn, why doesn't that kind of shit ever happen to me?"

  "Cos you're a douche."

  "It's not that, I just don't have your Ken doll looks." Brett's alway liked to mock me about the way I look. Last week he suggested that I should learn to sing and dance in sync and join a boy band. He said he would manage me and that we'd be rich, on account of the fangirls that would follow me and swoon. He used the word swoon. Who uses that word? Didn't they only swoon in Shakespearean times?

  "It's so unfair." He mock punched me on the arm, and actually looked like he'd hurt his knuckles. Brett is about the most unsporty guy you'll ever meet, he's constantly making up excuses to get out of gym, he even faked a limp and walked on crutches for a whole semester once. He's also getting a bit pudgy around the middle, something he keeps pointing out as if he's proud of it. Only Brett could do that and get away with it. He's not the kind of guy I would ever have been friends with, if it wasn't for Maria and how close we all live. My other group don't really understand how we all hang out together, not that I care. But sometimes I do feel like I straddle two very different worlds and that I'm not sure where I really belong.

  Sometimes I have this feeling that my insides don't match my outsides. On the outside I'm supposed to belong somewhere else, but on the inside, my place is here. Maria hates it when I hang out with my 'other group', she says I turn into a douche. Speaking of which, I see that Chase and Tyler are walking up to me. They both nodded in my direction, and I nodded back. Out the corner of my eye I saw Brett shoot me a displeased look, before he started to walk away.

  "Gotta go!" It's like oil and water, they just don't mix.

  "Dude. Where did you go? You left as it was getting good," Tyler said.

  "Emmy got totally pissed and took her top off. No bra!" Chase said and proceeded to high-five Tyler in macho grando appreciation.

  "Great tits," Tyler and Chase both nodded in macho appreciation.

  "Massive," Chase added.

  I smiled with them, trying to get excited about Emmy's aparently massive tits, but all I could think about is when the hell Maria will be here so we can launch our investigation.

  "You coming?" Tyler asked, indicating for us to go inside.

  I shook my head. "Gonna wait for Maria."

  "Wait for McKenzie more like it." Tyler said with a fat smile across his face. "Yeah, I can't believe you haven't hooked up with her yet."

  They threw a few 'dude punches' my way before they both walked off laughing

  I'm not entirely sure why I'm friends with them actually. I guess, it's just expected of me.

  I decided to wait outside the gate for Maria. She's probably been traumatized this morning by her sister's driving. I used to get lifts to school with them, but since McKenzie started driving, I don't feel like putting my life in danger every single morning. My suspicions are immediately confirmed when the car pulled up, well, it kind of skidded up as if someone was being too bit heavy footed on the pedal.

  Maria climbed out of the back with a look on her face that screamed she hadn't enjoyed the ride over. She's so easy to read. Not like the other girls at school. She doesn't play games either, I like that about her. She doesn't say nothing's wrong when secretly she's mad with you. She doesn't say she's fine when actually she wants to kill you for some wrongdoing you've committed that you weren't even aware of committing. She doesn't play those chick mind games and speak in that weird chick code that every guy is somehow expected to understand, but doesn't. She's like one of the guys, that's what I like most about her.

  Mckenzie waved at me from the car. "Hey, Mike." She's always greeted me in a flirty manner. She waved another cute wave that made her look twelve, as if that's somehow meant to make her more appealing. I've never understood how she and Maria are related. They're total opposites in every way possible, they're meant to be identical too but look nothing alike. Especially since Maria cut all her hair off. Her mom freaked, it was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. She even suggested collecting the cut hair and trying to have it made into a wig that Maria could wear. But it suits her better this way. Short, kind of floppy, shaggy and it goes spikey when it's wet and she runs her hands through it- it's pretty adorkable. One summer, the one we literally spent swimming in the dam all day, I started calling her Spike.

  Maria walked up to me and rolled her eyes, no need to talk. We're communicating telepathically, the usual. I rolled mine back in acknowledgement of her pain and suffering and gave her a little nod. I linked arms and pulled her to the side.

  "So you ready?"

  "For what?"

  "To figure out who's chewing that gum?"

  She stopped and looked at me oddly for a moment or two. I've been noticing a lot of odd looks lately and t
o be honest, I'm not really sure what to make of them, I was just about to ask her what was up when-

  "You're serious. Like, you actually want me to go snooping around until I figure out who chews that brand of gum. Seriously. Not a joke. For real?" She sounded irritated.

  "Yeah."

  She sighed, and it seemed a little more than her usual cynical sigh that she delivered to the world from time to time when the world is making her disgruntled.

  "Please, you've got to help. I need to know who she is." I pulled her closer so that our arms bumped into each other. "Dude. Please, I need you. I would look like a perv if I started staring at all the chicks, waiting for one to pull out some gum. You would blend in though. You could move through them unnoticed."

  "Like a spy."

  "Totally. A fucking spy."

  "Looking for gum?"

  "Yeah."

  "Do you know how lame that sounds?"

  I shrugged. I didn't care how lame it sounded. It was the only clue I had to go on. All my hopes were pinned on the gum.

  "Why don't you just send a memo out. A bulk Facebook message to everyone, stick an announcement on the board asking the girl who kissed you to come forward."

  I shook my head. I'd already thought about that. "No. If she wanted me to know who she was right away, she wouldn't have left. I think she wants me to find her. It's a test."

  And now Maria let out one almighty sigh and rolled her eyes so dramatically I thought they might get stuck in her head.."A test?"

  "Yeah. Maybe she left the gum on purpose."

  "Fine. Whatever, I'll help you."

  I threw my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. "You're the best."

  Maria pulled away quickly. "What can I say, I'm too damn good for you."

  "You are!"

  Chapter 7 - Maria

  It's the school dance soon. And it's all they can talk about. The halls are alive with dance chatter. They're all OMGing over pictures in magazines of horrendous and way too revealing pastel pink dresses, they're LOLing all day about who's going to ask who out. My sister already has her dress picked out, she and Mom went shopping for it last week, although I'm pretty sure as we get closer to the date, she'll probably change her mind several times and want something else, which my mom will probably buy her.