Kiss Kiss

by Various Authors

  What happened to you? (Julia)

  The ride back to Somerville was tense and awkward. Something, I don’t know what—maybe the humidity or the wind direction or butterflies in China—had put Crank into a mood again. He wasn’t exactly hostile, but he wasn’t friendly either. He sat in the passenger seat, staring out the window, a frown on his face.

  I don’t know why this bothered me. It’s not like we were a thing. It’s not like we were anything. But he’d switched moods so quickly, from anger and hostility last night, to open and laughing this morning, and now he was cold. I didn’t get it, I didn’t like it, and I was starting to not like him. At all.

  “So,” I said, trying to break the heavy silence. “Once you get your car checked out, just give me a call. Unless it’s going to be a lot of money, I really don’t want to get involved with the insurance, because that’ll mean my parents getting involved.”

  He nodded. “All right.”

  I got off 93 for Somerville, and we were in traffic again. He was still silent, staring out the window. He was starting to irritate me. A few blocks from the Metro Club, I said, “Did I do something wrong?”

  He jerked, surprise on his face. “What?”

  “I said, did I do something wrong? Did I piss you off somehow? Because I’m having some trouble figuring you out.”

  Crank shrugged and looked out the window again, then said, “I’m not an easy guy to figure out.”

  “I’m not interested enough to try. It’s just that last night you were all, stay the hell away, and this morning you were friendly, and now I’m sitting in a car with an ice cube. I don’t do moody.”

  “I didn’t ask you to,” he responded.

  “Are you always such a dickhead?”

  His eyes widened, and he looked over at me. Then he smirked and laughed out loud. We were still sitting at a red light, so I glared at him.

  “You’re actually really hot,” he said. The smirk on his face widened a little.

  “You’re actually really an ass,” I replied.

  He grinned and rolled his eyes, and if the light hadn’t turned green, I might have punched him. But instead, he said, “I’m sorry I was such a dick last night. Look … Sean’s had a tough time. My mom left almost five years ago. And he’s never gotten along well with the kids at school.”

  I don’t think he realized, but as he spoke, his hands tightened into fists. “They treat him like dirt. And I don’t want to bring someone around who he’ll get attached to, only to get hurt again when you stop coming around.”

  “Why would he get attached to me? I was only there one night.”

  “He’s already attached to you. Sean doesn’t ask people for things. Ever.”

  I blinked my eyes, trying to shove back a wave of empathy for that kid. He was nice, just a little different. But I knew what people were like in high school. Nice didn’t cut it in high school. Teenagers could be vicious, and Sean was different. Very different. I could only imagine what he went through every day.

  “He’s a good kid,” I said.

  “You’ve only seen one side of him. You haven’t seen him having a meltdown, and freaking out and breaking things. You haven’t seen his heart broken. People think Aspie kids don’t want to have friends. It’s not that at all. He wants friends desperately, but everybody rejects him.”

  “Aspie?”

  “Asperger's.”

  I took a deep breath, my eyes tearing up a little, and Crank kept talking.

  “I’d do anything, anything in the world, to make his life a little easier. But I can’t. All I can do is protect him a little.”

  We’d reached Central Square. I took a right and then drove slowly into the parking lot at the Metro. I took a deep breath and said, “So you want me to stay away. Not come to his birthday?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what I want, all right?”

  Well, that made two of us. I squeezed my hands on the steering wheel. “Well, maybe you need to figure that out. But don’t be an asshole while you do it. Because I didn’t do anything but be nice to you and your brother.”

  “Well, you did wreck my car.” As he said it, a grin appeared on his face.

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “All right. There is that. I promise I won’t do it again.”

  He opened the car door, started to get out, then paused and looked over at me. “All right. I’ll call and let you know what the damage is. And … do come Saturday. Sean will be upset if you don’t.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Without another word he got out, slammed the door of the car and walked away.

  Twenty minutes later, I had the car parked and leaned back in my seat for just a few seconds and closed my eyes. I was exhausted. It had been a long, late night after a long day on Friday. I’d hardly slept, and it had been an emotionally charged morning. I wanted to get back to my room and go to sleep for a couple hours before I went out with Barrett.

  Which I really didn’t want to do. I don’t know why I’d agreed to go out to dinner with him. A couple days ago it seemed like a good idea. Now I wasn’t so sure. But I’d committed, and he was going to show up at six o’clock, and I didn’t want to be a complete bitch and cancel. So there. Stuck.

  For just a second, I thought of taking the coward’s way out and canceling via text message. Then I realized I hadn’t touched my phone since … the accident? Oh, no. When I hit Crank’s car, I’d lost the phone. I frantically started looking, and there it was, in the back seat. I picked it up. Twelve missed calls.

  Oh, for God’s sake. Nine from my mother. Looked like she’d gotten over her aversion to cell phones. The other three were from Jemi. Now that was unusual. I selected her number and dialed.

  She answered immediately, her soft British accent sounding urgent. “Hello? Julia! Are you all right?”

  “Hey, Jemi … of course I’m okay, what’s wrong?”

  Silence for a few seconds, and then she said, “Um … you ran out of the Metro last night upset and didn’t come back to the room … and you weren’t answering your phone. I was worried. Where are you?”

  “Oh … I’m right across the street, I’ll be back at our room in a few minutes.”

  “I’m here. Your mother has called. A few times.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  As I walked back to Cabot Hall, I realized I should have thought a little more. I wasn’t exactly the type to stay out all night and not answer calls. I wasn’t really the type to go out at all. And I knew my roommates had some kind of system worked out where they called each other, kept tabs on each other, if one was going to be out late. It was a safety thing, and smart, and had never really been necessary for me.

  God, I was exhausted. I trudged up the stairs to the third floor and down the hall to our suite. When I got there, Jemi was sitting on the couch, her feet up on the coffee table, a textbook in her lap. She looked up and gave me an uncertain smile.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the phone rang first. She gave an unhappy smile. “That will likely be your mother again.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered, then walked over to the phone and picked it up. It had a tiny piece of grass stuck to the cradle. Which meant one of my roommates had searched the yard, found the phone, and brought it up here. Oh, boy, there were going to be questions.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Julia? Julia?” My mother said at a shout. I started to respond, but before I even had a chance, she said, “Can you hear me? Answer me!”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Where have you been?” she demanded. “I’ve been trying to reach you since last night.”

  “I stayed at a … friend’s house last night. I forgot my phone in the car.”

  “At a time like this? After the discussion we had last night?”

  “A time like what? And what exactly are you implying?”

  My mother’s voice dropped to a quiet, vicious tone, and she said, “You kn
ow exactly what I’m talking about, young lady. I raised you better than that.”

  I was very calm. Calmer than I expected. For the last four years, ever since the day my once best friend decided to sabotage my life, I’d heard this over and over again from my mother. She never asked me what had actually happened. She never offered a bit of sympathy. She never did anything but try to grind me into the dust.

  I’d finally had enough.

  “Please don’t call me again,” I said.

  I didn’t wait for an answer. I simply, quietly hung the phone up. I took a deep breath, staring at it, knowing it would ring again within a minute. But it didn’t. After a few moments, Jemi said, “I found the phone out on the Quad.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said. I felt unaccountably sad. I wanted to cry, and I didn’t understand why.

  “I’m worried about you,” Jemi said.

  I looked up at her, startled.

  She set her textbook down beside her. “I know we’ve never been close …” she said.

  “I’ve never been close to anyone,” I replied.

  Her eyebrows pressed down, close to each other, and she said, “Maybe it’s time you tried.”

  I spread my hands out and opened my mouth, as if I was going to say something, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say. Or how.

  “Sit down,” she said, patting the couch. I thought for just a second, and then I walked over and sat with her.

  “You know we’ve been suitemates for three years,” she said, “and I still don’t know anything really personal about you.”

  It was true. I didn’t know a lot about her either.

  I took a deep breath. “I have a hard time trusting people.”

  “I do, too,” Jemi replied. “That’s why we should team up. Adriana and Linden would tell their life story to a stranger on the sidewalk.”

  I snorted. “It’s true.”

  “So … let me ask you a question.” She leaned close to me as she spoke.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Everyone’s read that Maria Clawson blog … your ex-boyfriend, um … emailed it to just about everyone.”

  I groaned.

  “Are you and Crank Wilson involved? Is that why you were so upset last night?”

  “The blog is all bullshit,” I said. “She made almost all of it up.”

  “The kiss in that photo looked very convincing,” Jemi said. Her tone was so serious that I couldn’t help but giggle.

  “Um, yeah, we did kiss.”

  She grinned. “You really should have told me.”

  I shrugged. “It … it doesn’t really matter. I mean—it’s not like, um …” I was at a loss.

  She raised her eyebrows. “It’s okay. So what happened last night?”

  “Um, well … I kind of wrecked Crank’s car. And then drove him home, and stayed there, and now I’m home.”

  She looked stunned. “You stayed at his place last night?”

  “Well, no, at his father’s house. He had to watch his brother.”

  She raised an eyebrow, and I spoke again. “I slept on the couch.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious!”

  Her expression shifted, and she got a wicked grin on her face. Then she said, “Well, that was certainly a waste.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, burying my face in my hands.

  She laughed a little. “So why is your mother calling every five minutes? Why did you throw the phone out the window?”

  I opened my mouth. And I almost told her. I almost did. But all I could see was Lana. My best friend through high school. We got in a fight, the last week of junior year. My last week in China. In the end, the fight was about nothing at all. But she’d gotten to the point where she couldn’t say goodbye. Maybe we all do after a while. I deal with that by not getting close. She dealt it with it by smashing things. So she sent out an email to the entire junior class, detailing what had happened between Harry and me. She’d taken the biggest hurt and damage in my life and turned it into gossip. The kind of vicious gossip that can ruin lives.

  I looked at Jemi, and I don’t know what I was thinking, because I said, “I can’t. I’m sorry I can’t talk about it. I can’t ever talk about anything again.” And I was mortified, because I started crying. Really crying, because what I really wanted, what I wanted more than anything in the world right now, was my mom. And I couldn’t have her.

  “Oh, Julia, what happened to you?” Jemi whispered.

  That was all it took. I let out a moan, curled up on the couch, and cried like I hadn’t in years. Jemi slid over next to me and put her hand on my shoulder, and let me cry until I thought I was going to die.

  Okay, a lot weird (Crank)

  You wouldn’t think that a parking lot collision could do so much damage. But my car was completely wasted. Seeing it in the light, there was no question. The passenger side was crushed. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the car was rusted through already on the bottom, and the collision with Julia’s brand new car just destroyed it.

  Crap. I was going to need new wheels. Which meant I was going to have to spend a lot more time with Julia to find them, and get them paid for. I didn’t know if that was a bad thing or not. When it came to her, I didn’t know what to think.

  She’d called me out on being a dickhead, and you want to know the truth? I kind of liked that. No one called me out, except for Serena occasionally, and my dad. In other words, the people I really care about.

  It was four in the afternoon before I got back to the house. Everyone was gone, which was fine by me. I sat down, toying with some lyrics. That got me humming, and then thinking about some opening riffs, so I moved downstairs to the studio. And found myself sitting in front of the electric piano.

  We didn’t use it much in our music. I play piano better than I play guitar. I should—my mom started teaching me before I was tall enough to reach the keyboard. But most of our music didn’t call for it, and you can’t play the guitar and piano at the same time.

  In any event, what I was toying with seemed to call for piano. So I turned it on, tried out some notes and liked it, and kept going in that direction, tinkering, daydreaming, trying out different options, until the door opened and Mark and Pathin came in.

  Mark immediately said, “Crank! What the hell happened to your car?”

  “Wrecked,” I said.

  “Yeah, we saw that. You were long gone by the time we finished packing up the gear, but we saw the car. Some drunk dude said you took off with a girl?”

  Pathin shook his head, his expression a mix of resignation and near contempt. He’d never approved of my string of girls.

  “Yeah, something like that,” I said.

  “Well, what happened? Who did it?”

  I shrugged. “The girl I took off with.”

  Mark and Pathin stared at me, in shock, and then Mark burst into laughter. “You’re hilarious, Crank.”

  “Whatever,” I muttered. Then I started playing the song again. I had the first verse and the chorus down, and it was coming together well, but something wasn’t meshing quite right. The piano was driving, angry, like most of our stuff, but I was trying to work in a longing quality, and it just wasn’t coming together. I paused, trying a couple different options, when Mark blurted out, “Dude, what the hell is that?”

  I looked up. Both of them were standing there, mouths open.

  “What?” I asked.

  They looked at each other, until Pathin spoke. “I think what Mark is trying to say, Crank, is that’s … brilliant.”

  I blinked. It wasn’t brilliant at all. It actually kind of sucked. “Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s good.”

  “Seriously,” Pathin said, “I don’t know what was in the water when you went to Washington, but that’s two new songs in a week. And they’re good. If you keep this up, we might have to go back to the studio and cut a new EP.”

  I snorted. “We’ve barely paid for the last
one.”

  “Whatever, Crank. I’ll deliver some extra pizzas or something. Or maybe Mark can actually work for a change.”

  “What the hell, man, I work!” Mark protested.

  “Yes, we know, about four hours a week,” Pathin responded.

  “I pull my weight,” Mark said in a sharp tone, glowering.

  Pathin looked at him. “Do we really need to have this discussion again?”

  “Guys, cool it,” I said. “I’m trying to work here.” Christ, they were like an old married couple.

  “Whatever,” Mark muttered. “We’re headed out about ten. Coming?”

  “Where to?”

  “Bill’s.”

  Near Kenmore Square, Bill’s was connected to Lansdowne, where we’d played several shows over the last couple of years. They were friendly, and a lot of the girls from Berklee College of Music hung out there. Which usually meant it was a guaranteed spot for me to pick up some action. Though as tired as I was, I wasn’t sure I was up to it that night. Besides, I was sick of Serena giving me a hard time about it. She attended Berklee and sometimes it was a little … weird … with her hanging out with girls I’d slept with.

  Okay, a lot weird.

  “All right. Give me a little bit, I think I’ve almost got this.”

  They wandered off, and I got back to work. The problem was simple, really. I was trying to do something that couldn’t be done. Playing with Julia earlier that day had put my brain in a different mode, and what I was really going for here wasn’t going to work without four hands on the keyboard. I scribbled it all down, in a hurry, and there it was. Done. And impossible. I shook my head. I seriously needed a nap, I’d hardly had any sleep, and it was almost ten o’clock already, and I wasn’t making any progress. I switched the keyboard off and headed upstairs for a shower.

  An hour later, the three of us were waved into Bill’s Bar & Lounge. It was packed, as expected, and my head was pounding, even with the four aspirin I took before we left. I put back my first drink in a hurry, hoping it would dull the pain a little and relaxed a little on the second.

  Then I felt a tiny little arm snake around my waist, and I looked down to see Alicia Mosier.

  Oh, damn.