Who I Kissed

by Janet Gurtler

  “Good-bye,” I say to no one and put the phone back on the cradle.

  “That was a boy?” Dad says.

  I turn to look at him. “An English project.”

  “Hmm. That’s not what we called it in my day.”

  “Not funny, Dad. We’re doing a report on 1984 and it’s going to be a big part of my grade. Casper is smart, and he wants to work with me because I’m smart too.”

  His lips turn up, and he sits up straight and tries to look contrite by scrunching up his eyebrows. “Sorry,” he says “Smart is right. Especially in English. My worst subject. I was a math guy.”

  “I never would have guessed that.” Except I’ve heard it, like, a hundred times before. I walk to the table, take his dishes to the garbage, clear them, and load them into the dishwasher. I come back to put the condiments away, and he’s still staring at me. “What?” I ask.

  He tilts his head, and his eyes crinkle in the corners. Concerned. “Are the kids at school being…you know, okay?”

  I frown, lift my shoulder, grab the salt and pepper shakers from the table, and stick them in the cupboard.

  “Did they…” He pauses and I spin around, frowning at him as I grab the milk carton from the table.

  “What?” I demand when he stops.

  “Your swim team didn’t start rumors, like they did in Orlie?”

  “Dad!” My mouth drops open. I hurry to the fridge, shove the milk inside, and then stare at him, shocked. My face is hotter than the sunburn I got in California at an outdoor swim meet last year. He knew about the rumors?

  He looks around the room, as if he’d rather be somewhere else than having a convo with me about my sexual orientation. “I knew it wasn’t true. I mean. It isn’t. Right?”

  “I’m sure if the dead could speak, Alex would back me up on this one.”

  “Oh, butterfly.” He stands and takes a step toward me but I step back and press my back against the refrigerator.

  “No, that rumor is gone. Now I’m just a murderer. A straight one.”

  He takes a step toward me and then stops. “Are the kids bullying you?”

  “No. They fucking love me, Dad. Why wouldn’t they?”

  I wait for him to yell at me for saying the F-word in front of him. He says nothing. A part of me realizes I want him to yell. To talk about what’s happening, even in anger. But he stares at me as if I’m someone he doesn’t even know.

  In some ways, he’s right.

  “Do you need to go back and see the counselor?” he calls.

  I head for my bedroom. “Bob and I have an appointment in a week,” I call back. “I’m good.”

  I need to talk, but as usual, there’s so much Dad and I don’t say. So much we need to say. Like the F-word. Over and over and over. Until my throat begs for mercy.

  chapter eight

  A couple of days later, I walk in the door from school and Aunt Allie jumps up from the kitchen table and whirls toward me, a blend of turquoise and browns, as her skirt and billowy sweater blow all around her. She’s holding Fredrick in one arm. He has a tiny little head with pointy black ears, and he’s wearing a miniature bandana with autumn leaves all over it.

  Fredrick stares at me with a slightly entitled expression shining in his eyes and barks a high-pitched squeal, but his tail wags as Aunt Allie pulls me toward her with her free arm. He maneuvers around us and licks my face to renew our friendship.

  Aunt Allie crushes me into her shoulder. Her flowery scent is both familiar and comforting. She never changes much. Skirts, scarves, blouses, vests. When she lets me go, she lifts my chin and stares into my eyes with her intensely green-blue ones, so much like Dad’s and my own. Hers are enhanced with eyeliner and see much more than I ever want them to. Whether it’s because of her spirituality and dabblings in all things psychic or just because she knows me so well, I’m never sure.

  “I’m so sorry about what you’ve been going through, butterfly.” Her voice is low and gravelly. “I would have come sooner, but I was in a convention in Houston. Keynote speaker.” She lets my chin go and hugs me close again.

  Behind us, Dad is sitting at the kitchen table, visible from the foyer. He clears his throat and mumbles something, but we both ignore him.

  “It’s okay,” I say into her shoulder.

  “We knew you’d come eventually,” Dad mumbles a little louder.

  She gently pushes me back so she can look over to the kitchen and glare at him, but she keeps one arm around me, Fredrick tucked up in the other. I slide off my shoes and slip out from her.

  “No, it’s not okay. Sam needed me. I don’t care what you say, Jonathan. She did. Does.” She narrows her eyes and shoots him a look so evil that if I were on the other end of it I would sleep with one eye open for the rest of my life. He merely rolls his.

  “The truth is, I would have flown here the minute I heard about the accident, but your dad said to give you space. I came as soon as your father would let me.”

  “Way to”—Dad makes air quotation marks—“hold your tongue.”

  Aunt Allie makes a pshhaw sound. “I don’t want to darken the energy in this house with more lies. She needs to know I love her and would drop everything for her.”

  “She’s my daughter,” Dad says.

  “And she’s my niece. Also a girl who desperately needs the love of a woman right now. A relative, not a nanny. And unfortunately, I’m the closest thing she’s got.”

  I know she auditioned hard for the role of surrogate mom, but Dad went with a nanny from the time I was little. She still brings it up every once in a while, even though the nanny days are behind me. It’s not the first or the last time they’ll bicker about me.

  Dad studies the table and brushes away imaginary crumbs. “I didn’t ask you to lie to her. You just don’t have to blurt out every thought on your mind.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I say before she can answer.

  I reach out to pet Fredrick. He snorts happily and licks my hand, wagging his tail. His head is out of proportion with his body. Pencil-thin legs support his bloated tummy. He paws at my arm, demanding that I take him from Aunt Allie and give him the attention he deserves.

  “Hola, mi amiga,” Aunt Allie says in a Spanish voice, pretending she is the voice of Fredrick. “You are so beautiful.”

  She holds him out, and he uses my arm to crawl over and prop himself up to my face and then sticks his tiny tongue inside my nose. It makes me laugh, and it’s a relief to have the dark clouds parted, even for a brief moment.

  “Fredrick loves you,” she says. “He doesn’t take to many people.”

  “He always growls at me,” Dad says.

  “Like I was about to say, he has very good taste,” Aunt Allie says.

  “Ha ha,” Dad says, regressing in front of my eyes.

  Aunt Allie takes Fredrick from me, places him on the floor, and then grabs my hand and leads me to the kitchen table. There’s a plate of giant cookies in the middle, and she gestures toward it.

  “Please. Eat them. They’re for you.” She glares at Dad as he’s taking a big bite of one.

  “You baked them yourself?” Dad smiles a bratty smile. I don’t think he notices how much more laid back he is when his big sister is around. She’s not all bad for him.

  “Of course I did. At the Starbucks bakery. At the airport.” Aunt Allie waves her hand in the air. “Just eat them. They cost a bloody fortune.”

  “You inherited your cooking gene from Mom,” he says.

  “As did you,” she answers, plucking a cookie from the pile and nibbling at it.

  “Didn’t Mom tell you boys aren’t supposed to cook?” Dad says.

  “I may have heard that once or twice.” A tiny smile turns up the corner of her mouth, and they stare at each other for a
moment across the table. They don’t speak, but a whole conversation seems to happen.

  “You going to eat, Sam?”

  I wonder if the cookies are peanut free. “I just ate at school,” I lie. “Dad’s not that bad a cook,” I add to defend him.

  “Well. He’s improved then,” she says and flashes him a grin.

  “You’re one to talk,” Dad says. I half expect him to stick his tongue at her like a five-year-old.

  Aunt Allie takes another bite of her cookie. “Have you talked to them? Mom or Dad?” she asks, her voice softer than usual.

  He nods. “Mom. A few days ago.” He glances at me and then back at Aunt Allie. “They’re doing okay. Well, getting old. Dad is on heart medication. Mom’s osteo is worse. They’re cranky and self-centered, as always.” He smiles. “They asked about you. Whether you’d be coming to see Sam.”

  “They didn’t offer to come, of course?”

  Dad shakes his head.

  “Of course not,” Aunt Allie says. “That would require actual human compassion.”

  Both of them stare off into space. “At least we don’t have to worry about me being spoiled by grandparents,” I say.

  Aunt Allie shakes her head and turns to me and smiles. “That we don’t.”

  Fredrick runs over and paws at her legs. Aunt Allie bends to scoop him up in her lap. She breaks off a tiny piece of cookie and gives it to him.

  Dad makes a coughing sound in his throat. Aunt Allie glances at Dad. “At least you and Sam cook. I hated cooking when I was a kid.” She holds out another piece of cookie for Fredrick, but he turns up his nose at it.

  “I know. I remember.”

  She eats the piece she offered to Fredrick, and I gag a little inside. Then she turns back to me. “Your dad looks tired, Samantha. I don’t suppose I can hope it’s from getting too much action.”

  My mouth opens, but I’m lost for words. Dad shoots me an “I told you so” look, but then he actually laughs. “Allie, please. You’ll scar Sam for life. And seriously, do you need to have your dog in your lap at the table? And share your food? You’re making us sick.”

  “Of course I do,” Aunt Allie says, flicking her hand in the air. “And it would take a lot more than that to shock teenagers these days. Probably shock Sam if you had a real conversation with a live woman. You’re the most stubborn man I know. Single for over sixteen years.” She makes a sign of the cross, lifts Fredrick, tucks him under her arm, and then stands and walks to our gigantic fridge. “I might borrow Sam’s laptop and set up a profile for you on one of those dating services.”

  He glances at me. We both know he was seeing a woman from work back in Orlie, even if we didn’t talk about it much. Rose. She wore yoga pants and ugly sweaters. She was nice, mostly quiet, kind of a female version of him. I couldn’t imagine them doing anything except having dinner together and bonding over spreadsheets and chose to believe their relationship was purely platonic, even though some mornings when I got up she was still there. Too much to drink, I told myself.

  He hasn’t talked about her since we moved, and neither have I. The fact that he never mentioned her to Aunt Allie doesn’t surprise me in the least. He’s good at keeping secrets.

  “You’re one to talk,” he says to Aunt Allie, but his voice is bouncy, as if he’s enjoying the break in the seriousness that’s been clogging the air in our house. “When’s the last time you went on a date?”

  I hide a smile behind my hand. “Yeah. We’ve never met any of your man friends.”

  Aunt Allie scowls at both of us. “I was meant to be alone on this planet. I have Fredrick, and he isn’t threatened by my intelligence. Nor does he hog the remote or tell me my butt is getting big. Besides, according to my angels, my soul mate passed before I was born.”

  “Bullshit,” Dad coughs into his hand again, but she ignores him.

  “But you. An attractive, relatively young man in a town of divorced woman. Unlike me, you need someone.” She tugs on the door of the stainless steel fridge. It’s heavy.

  “I don’t need someone, and how do you even know there are divorced women in this town?”

  She pops her head and arm inside the fridge and emerges with a bottle of white wine in her hand. “This is America, isn’t it? Divorced women are an epidemic.” She holds up the wine bottle for my dad’s approval. “Shall we?”

  He glances down at his watch. “It’s not five o’ clock yet.”

  She gives him a look that would give me nightmares if it were directed at me. He stands and grabs the wine bottle from her hand and digs in the kitchen drawer for the corkscrew.

  He grabs a wineglass, fills it halfway, and hands it to Aunt Allie. She sticks her nose inside the glass and sniffs appreciatively. “Mmmm. Sauvignon blanc. You going to have some, Sam?”

  “No, she’s not,” Dad answers. “She’s underage.”

  “European children drink wine with their families all the time.”

  “Last time I checked, we were living in the United States of America.”

  “You always were an observant child,” she says to him and shrugs as she turns to me. “And what about you, butterfly? I heard you’ve had your eye on some handsome young swimmer?”

  The levity in the room vanishes. Reality crashes hard. My whole body converts back to ice. For a moment, I’m incapable of movement.

  “Allie,” Dad says and glances sideways at me. “She’s still getting over this…thing.”

  “Of course she is,” my aunt says. She sips her wine and watches me over the rim of her glass. “I’m sorry, Sam, but you’re not going to give up on boys forever, are you? Just because your father and I live like a priest and a nun doesn’t mean you have to.”

  My knee bounces up and down under the table. I bend my head down and put my elbows on the table. “Dad had a girlfriend in Orlie. She stayed the night a couple times,” I mutter.

  “Sam!” Dad says. “That’s private.” I look up, and he’s glaring at Aunt Allie. She’s grinning at him.

  “You just got here. We don’t need to discuss this right now,” he tells her, but I know he’s not talking about his girlfriend.

  “Yes. We do.” She takes a few steps to me, reaches down for my shoulder, and squeezes it. “I’m just trying to show you that life goes on,” she says softly. “What happened to that boy was awful. But not talking about it isn’t going to make it go away.”

  I lift my hands and press my palms into my eyes. “Nothing will make it go away. It’s on every TV channel and all over the newspapers. It’s even on the radio when I drive to school.”

  “Samantha, you kissed a boy. That is far from a crime at your age. There was a horrible, horrible accident.” I hear her place Fredrick on the floor, and his nails tap the tile. “It wasn’t your fault. Your life will go on. You will go on to kiss other boys.”

  My earlobes feel like they’re about to spontaneously burst into flames. I wonder if it’s possible for them to melt my brain.

  She sips her wine again. “I have a client up in Canada who heard about it. But I’m so grateful your name isn’t being splashed all over the place.”

  “Why? Because it would be an embarrassment? If people found out I was your niece?”

  “Sam!” Dad says, and it’s clear he’s not on my side on this one.

  I lower my chin. “Sorry,” I say to the table, but we both know I don’t really mean it.

  “Of course not, Samantha,” Aunt Allie says. “You’re innocent. All you did was something that almost every teenage girl has done or will do. I just want to make sure you’re protected from crazies. ’Cause there are always some of those out there. We don’t need your name inviting them in.”

  I push my hands into my eyes to block her out.

  “Have you started swimming again?” she asks.

  I
pull my hands away from my eyes and glare at Dad, wondering if he’s put her up to this, but he looks about as comfortable as I feel about this conversation.

  “No.” My lips press tightly together.

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head.

  “Why not?” she repeats.

  “Allie,” Dad says. “You’re pushing her too hard.”

  She ignores him and keeps her focus on me, narrowing her eyes.

  “I can’t,” I whisper to her, afraid she can see what’s in my head. The feeling is familiar, and my stomach tumbles into coils.

  “You can.” Aunt Allie sits. “You choose not to.” Fredrick paws at her legs and whimpers, and she lifts him back into her lap. She sips her wine, watching me. “You don’t think you deserve to go on with your life?”

  “Leave her alone,” Dad says. “Her doctor said to give her time.”

  “Her doctor doesn’t know her. Swimming is as important to this child as breathing and eating. Why do you think you can’t swim, Sam?”

  I lift a shoulder and concentrate on breathing, feeling the control I’ve built up start to slip. She’s trying to force me to admit something I can’t even put into words. I can’t admit I miss the pool. Swimming. I have all this free time and all this anxiety. And nothing to do with it.

  “Survivor guilt, Sam. You’re suffering terribly from it. And I knew your father would not be much help.” She turns to him and frowns. “No offense, Jonathan, I know you love her and want what’s best for her, but she needs to deal with this. Talk about it. Not pretend it never happened. Not pretend it’s all going to go away. If Sam is going to get her life back, she has to face some things.”

  “She’s seeing a therapist,” Dad says. “Bob.”

  “And that is a wonderful start.” She looks back at me. “But Bob doesn’t live with her. He doesn’t speak to her every day.”

  “I can call him if I need to,” I mumble. “He gave me his cell number for emergencies.”