21 Stolen Kisses

by Lauren Blakely

  “No one ever notices that I wrote for the New York Press,” he says, as he takes his vodka tonic from the bartender and tosses a green bill on the black lacquer. “Or that Brooklyn hipsters needed to be mocked.”

  I laughed. “They do. And most people don’t notice because most people think TV writers are born that way. Fully formed and writing in dialogue. But most cut their teeth doing something else.”

  His eyes light up. “Exactly. Everyone started someplace no one wants to remember. Journalism. Speechwriting. Even press releases. But hey, I’m lucky to be able to write, right?” he says, his comment a reminder that Tremaine is here at this charity event because he’s a big supporter of literacy efforts. He grew up with a mom who was a teacher and regularly volunteered to teach reading and writing to underprivileged adults.

  “We all are lucky on that count, and I’m lucky that the New York Press hired you because your columns cracked me up. They made me laugh when I needed a laugh,” I say as his wife rejoins him, hooking her arm through his and flashing a smile. A waiter passes by and offers tuna on a chichi-looking potato chip. I shake my head no.

  Tremaine lifts his chin at me. “Noah Hayes, you said?”

  I nod.

  “You’re an agent, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and I can see you’re busy. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Wait. You’re not going to try to … ,” he says, letting his voice trail off.

  “Woo you?” I ask as I raise an eyebrow.

  He nods, and his wife laughs. He wraps an arm around her waist and plants a kiss on her cheek. “Yes, we’re used to agents wooing my husband,” she says, chiming in.

  “Want me to? Woo you?”

  “I’m just surprised you didn’t,” he adds, a note of almost delight in his voice.

  “Good. I think it’s good when we can surprise each other in a business where there’s little of that left. I’ll leave it at this. I’ve been a fan of yours since forever,” I say, then I walk away.

  A guy like Tremaine isn’t looking for an agent who’s like every other agent. I have to leave him wanting more.

  I find my date, feeling that momentary pang of annoyance when I see Jenna and not Kennedy. It’s not Jenna’s fault that she’s not the one I want; nor is it her problem that out of nowhere a deep and lonely longing slams into me, and I wish I was sneaking off to see Kennedy in the park. Hell, I’d gladly settle for just running into her on the street like the other night.

  I wish she’d say she’s ready.

  But I won’t push her. I can’t. She needs what she needs right now, even though she’s the only person who ever truly needed me. And look, it’s not like I have a thing for younger girls. I’ve dated plenty my age. There was my college girlfriend Sandy, then the hot drummer Hayley that Matthew introduced me to, and then the publicist Mica last year, the one Jonathan thought I was still seeing, even though she’s the one I broke up with when I started falling hard for the girl I wasn’t supposed to fall for.

  Soon, Jenna and I leave MoMA. As I walk her home, she clears her throat and says, “So I was wondering …”

  And I can almost predict what’s coming next.

  “If I could show you a treatment for a sitcom I’m working on,” she continues, and there it is. The hit-up. The inevitable ask. I know that’s why Jenna agreed to come with me tonight. But then, it’s not as if I want anything more from her, so it seems only fair that I give her this side of me—my work side.

  “Sure,” I say.

  Before I even walk through my door, Jenna’s e-mailed me her script. I write back and tell her I’m looking forward to reading it.

  Then I search for something I can give freely. I find a picture of a deer with a white heart on his butt. I can hear Kennedy’s laughter as I hit Send.

  Chapter Ten

  Kennedy

  I knew his other girlfriends, including Mica. She came before me.

  She was pretty in a standard New York City entry-level-professional sort of way—straight brown hair clipped back, black sweaters and gray slacks and kitten heels. Mica was fascinated with my school, as if she could never imagine taking a class that lacked a boy. The Agnes Ethel School for Girls was all I’d had ever known since kindergarten, so I couldn’t fathom taking a class with a boy.

  “Does it even cross your mind at school anymore that there are no boys, or are you just totally used to it?” Mica asked as we chatted during one of my mom’s parties one spring night a little more than a year ago.

  “Totally used to it,” I said. “But it’s like the running joke that never gets old. We play Top Five Things That Suck about Going to an All-Girls’ School during impromptu lacrosse practice.”

  The routine went something like this:

  I’d lob the blue ball at the beige wall at the back of the school. “Time for our daily practice,” I’d say.

  “And what are the benefits of this daily practice?” Amanda would ask.

  “Keeps the mind and senses sharp.”

  “Keeps us ready for the rebellion,” Amanda would add. “In case we decide to overthrow the school someday.”

  “So we don’t become complacent!” I’d shout happily then we’d begin our call-and-response.

  “Number one. No boys.”

  “Number two. The uniforms.”

  “Number three. No prom.”

  “Number four. The way people all think we’re naughty girls.”

  “Number five. To being naughty girls!”

  Mica laughed out loud at the last one, probably especially because it didn’t quite fit on the list.

  “Do you wish you went to a coed school?” she asked.

  “Sure, but it is what it is. I’m used to this,” I said.

  “So are you seeing anyone outside of school?”

  No, but I kind of have a crush on your boyfriend.

  “Nope,” I said, and stole a glance at Noah, who sat on the couch across from my mom as she held court, entertaining the hearty and loyal guests with a story—mostly apocryphal—about the time she watched the sun rise while on a rooftop in Istanbul as the locals began their morning prayers. He’d probably heard it before, he probably knew all her stories by heart, but he listened, laughed, and smiled.

  He had his five-o’-clock shadow like a 1950s ad exec, and he looked like the kind of man who worked in the shade, who spent his working hours on the phone, talking, negotiating, wooing. He wore pressed black pants and a shirt the shade of raspberry. I wanted to walk over to him, sit down next to him, and touch the cuff of his shirt with my thumb and forefinger.

  I returned my focus to Mica. “I’m just too busy with school and stuff.”

  She scoffed, and ran her manicured fingers through her hair. “Kennedy, you’re never too busy to date. Let me tell you, when you meet the right guy, you’ll find a way to fit him in.”

  “Like Hayes for you?” I asked, and I tried to mask the higher pitch in my voice. I felt like a detective, ferreting out information. I wanted to know how serious Mica and Noah were.

  “Well, what’s not to like? He’s hot, sweet, and he’s making a ton of money already. He has to be the one,” Mica said, and I wanted to tackle her. I wanted to shout at Mica to stay away because Noah wasn’t about money. Who cared if he had money? I didn’t need or want a man for money, not then, and not ever. I might be in high school, but I damn well planned on making my own money when I was out of school. I wasn’t going to be dependent on anyone else’s wallet. Besides, love shouldn’t be about what someone made. It should be about how someone made you feel.

  “And you love him, right?”

  “Of course. Of course I love him,” she added, as if she were reminding herself. I tried not to glare at her.

  Noah walked into the kitchen to pour himself another iced tea and to grab a chocolate-chip cookie from a batch I’d made earlier for the party. He bit into a cookie, then rolled his eyes in pleasure. “I might have to take the whole batch when no one’s looking,” he said.r />
  Take them all, I wanted to say, but instead I flashed a small smile.

  “I better try one too,” Mica said, and there was a competitive tone, even a territorial one, in the declaration.

  Something flamed up in me; a thick plume of jealousy as she draped her arm around him as she ate the cookie. But then, I felt deeply ashamed. I had to stop entertaining a crush on a taken man. I didn’t want to be a thing like my mom, not one bit, not an iota. I told myself the crush was over and no one would ever need to know my schoolgirl daydreams had existed.

  I retreated to my upstairs bedroom, turned on my computer, and watched a YouTube video of my favorite Internet comedian speed walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in nothing but a banana-yellow Speedo and black Converse sneakers. It took my mind off the advantage all the Micas in the world would always have on me when it came to the Noahs—age.

  A few weeks later, she was absent from the party. Then the next one. Then the next one.

  I didn’t say anything about her sudden ejection from his life. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to breathe her name. I didn’t want to intervene, to plant a seed, to do any of the things I’d seen my mother do. I needed to be the opposite of my mom. I needed to be quiet, to be good, to keep my hands to myself.

  My mom didn’t have the same rules of self-regulation. “I’ll raise a glass to you getting that clingy girl out of your life,” she said to him one night while lifting her nearly drained wineglass. I sat at the kitchen table, studying for one of my final math tests of my junior year. She’d ordered Chinese takeout for the three of us, and we were waiting for it. She and Noah had been reviewing the next season’s plans for her show.

  “You never liked her, did you,” Noah said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Well, she practically had “marry me” written all over her face.”

  “What’s wrong with marriage, Jewel?” he asked, baiting her.

  “I suppose it’s fine for some people, but I don’t think of you as the marrying kind, my dear.”

  He laughed deeply. “I didn’t end it with Mica because of that. If she were the right girl, I’d have married her.”

  “You’re too young,” my mother said to him, and the irony of her words was not lost on me. “You should not even be thinking of marriage.”

  “I’m not thinking of it. And I’m not not thinking of it. When I meet the right girl, I’ll be down on one knee.”

  Jewel rolled her eyes. “You always make me laugh, Hayes.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny,” he said, but he was smiling too. He could egg her on in a way that no one else could, probably because their relationship was so clear. There were lines, they had roles, and everything was neat and orderly. She did enjoy dispensing relationship advice to him, though. She seemed unable to resist tinkering in the romantic life of a young, single, eligible New York bachelor.

  “Okay, Mr. Not Funny Man. Why did you end it with Mica then, if not for her clinginess?”

  “Let me get this straight. Clinginess is the only reason I should have ended things with Mica?”

  “You admit she was clingy?” Jewel countered. The agent and the writer—both used words as weapons.

  Noah shook his head. “Mica was a fine girl. But marriage never came up for either one of us, because we had different ideas of what makes a relationship work.”

  “What makes a relationship work then? I’m dying to know,” Jewel said. “Shared interests? Common beliefs? A little humor?”

  “That, and someone who knows all the lyrics to Chess,” he said with a wry smile, and I forced myself to hide a crazy grin. I’d told myself my crush was over. I’d almost tricked myself into believing it. But inside I thrilled at the words. I knew all the lyrics to Chess.

  Jewel laughed loudly at his remark. “Oh, you win. You win this round. You and your show tunes. You know Kennedy is a Broadway baby. She loves all musicals,” my mom said on the way to the kitchen to refill her wine.

  When she reached the other room, I look up at him, meeting his inky-blue gaze. “Now at least I know. I know him well,” I said in the smallest voice, almost under my breath.

  Noah straightened his spine and stared at me with wide eyes. I gripped my pencil so hard I thought it would break.

  “What did you just say?” he asked softly.

  I shook my head. I wouldn’t repeat the lyrics from the bittersweet ballad from Chess. I couldn’t admit that much. But I could let on that I shared the same interests. “It played for two months in 1988,” I said, and my heart was in my throat. My insides were spinning. I was sure my feelings were tattooed across my face, living, breathing ink marks with arms reaching for him.

  “And hasn’t been revived since, much to the chagrin of musical theater diehards everywhere,” he said, and his eyes sparkled.

  “Yes. Much to the chagrin.”

  I returned to the equations on the page, but they were drunk lines in front of me, weaving back and forth. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t speak. It was too much intoxication for me.

  Noah

  Something about the way she said those lines from Chess sent the temperature in me ticking up a few degrees.

  They were the match that lit the flame. They made me see all the possibilities of us.

  It was the sweetness in her voice, with a sliver of hopefulness too. I wanted to be unaffected by it, to let it slide right off me, like a thousand comments about a thousand things do every day. But she wasn’t like my every day business life. She was the beautiful young woman I couldn’t take my eyes off of whenever I went to Jewel’s home. I knew better; of course I knew better. But tell that to the stupid heart that was banging around in my chest. All from the simple fact that we liked the same obscure musical.

  My kryptonite.

  I couldn’t resist tossing back the next line. Low, under my breath. Jewel couldn’t hear me. She was in the kitchen and I was in her dining room, playing with fire, but ready to be burned.

  “Wasn’t it good?”

  She looked back up from her paper. I watched her swallow. Nervously. I did the same. I was dancing near some kind of line in the sand. “Wasn’t he fine?” she said, sharing another line.

  “Isn’t it madness?” I said softly, going next.

  She exhaled, and her cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. Then, in a whisper, she said the line that followed: “That he can’t be mine.”

  My heart pattered far too much in my chest then, and I was sure I should lock it up and tell it to never act that way around a seventeen-year-old girl again. But I didn’t do that. Because she wasn’t false or fake or angling for something. She was, quite simply, the girl who liked the same things I did.

  A few days later, I bumped into her in Central Park on my morning run. I wasn’t looking for her, but I wasn’t unhappy to see her when she rode past me on her bike at dawn and called out my name as I ran. She squealed to a stop, and I pulled up short too.

  “Who would have thought you owned something besides pants and perfect business shirts,” she said, looking me up and down, her green eyes hooking me.

  I tried to keep it light. Keep it safe. “Can’t burn off all those cookies wearing a dress shirt,” I joked.

  “But of course,” she said, then pressed her sneakers back into the pedals. “I should make more cookies for you.”

  Cookies. She was talking about cookies. But she was also talking about more. She was residing in that place where we weren’t agent and client’s daughter. Where we were friends, where we were a guy and a girl. I let myself forget who she was. I let the ties that bound us fade away.

  “Chocolate chip please,” I said, and was rewarded with her smile. “’Bye, Kennedy.”

  I ran into her a few more times over the next few weeks, and I never said a word to Jewel about those early morning encounters when I went over to her house in the evenings. Not even when Kennedy would ask me how my day was. I’d only say, “I had a great jog, then a great day.”

  Righ
t in front of her mom.

  “What about you?” I asked her.

  “I had a great bike ride, and then a great day,” she said, and our eyes said everything. We had the start of a secret, and we knew how to keep it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Kennedy

  The peaceful, easy feeling from staying at my dad’s quiet home doesn’t last long.

  The next night I’m back at my mom’s and I’m falling down the black hole of noise again. I pull the pillow over my ears when I hear my mom and Warren screwing.

  Loudly.

  The sounds try to strangle me, and I want to slam the moans out of the world, send the perpetrators of them far into orbit. The noises worm their way into me, even as I grip the pillow harder and firmer, over my head. I can barely take it. I grab my phone, jam earbuds in, and blast Chess. My fingers dig into the side of the screen, like claws that somehow hold me back from writing to Noah, reaching for him, like I want to. He saved me from this. In every way possible, he was my escape, and he freed me. My fingers burn with the need to reach out to him, to seek that comfort, that blissful oblivion. But then I remember the pained look in his eyes from the other night, and I can’t keep racing to him when everything around me hurts.

  At some point the music takes over and loosens the stranglehold. It’s enough for me to resist my lifeline.

  I think I was his lifeline too. We were both adrift in New York City. We were both surrounded by so many people, but ultimately we were terribly alone. Until we found each other.

  Maybe I’m still his lifeline because soon I can feel my phone vibrating under the sheets. I grab it, slide my thumb across the screen, and find a photo of a deer with a white heart on its butt.

  I laugh out loud, a deep laugh that rumbles through my body.

  Someday, we’re gonna find that deer.

  Then, I turn to the folders on my phone and scroll through all my pictures of hearts in nature. Someday, I will go on a treasure hunt around the world and find them all. Someday, I will believe in love again.