Kiss Crush Collide

by Christina Meredith

  But this house is too new, the grass started as seed, the trees too young to provide any shade. Some of them are still staked, and we are just hoping they make it through the summer heat. It doesn’t help that it hasn’t rained in what feels like forever.

  I leave the house early each morning. My mother peers over the rim of her latte, spoon resting on the edge of her saucer, because there should always be a saucer, gives me a quick visual inspection, and compliments my lip gloss before returning to her bridal magazine. A short lick across her thumb dismisses me as she flicks to the next glossy page, and I am on my way.

  The grass crunches and flattens under my feet as I ceremoniously cut a drawn-out sloping angle across our yard, ignoring the buzzing coming from my bag as Dani and Len call yet again, probably after another all-nighter. I avoid our long black driveway for as long as possible and, with it, the imminent early-morning arrival of Roger.

  Like clockwork, he downshifts as he makes his military-style turn into our driveway at exactly 8:15 A.M. each day. Exactly.

  I overslept once—I think it was after a hard night of fending off Shane—and there I was, still half asleep, propped up in the breakfast nook with my sisters nursing some thick chocolaty milk, when the doorbell rang. I heard my mother’s heels click across the foyer and then her voice echoing into the kitchen: “Oh, Roger, you’re practically family now . . . no need to ring the bell.” Roger shoved himself into the breakfast nook, practically squeezing me out, and leaned over to wrap his arms around Yorke’s stomach and give her what I thought was a very sloppy kiss, morning time or not. I almost barfed.

  Now I am sure to escape early, and after weeks of practice I can make it all the way across the yard and to the edge of the driveway before I smile big and fake and wave at Roger just as he angles his red car to ninety degrees and snaps down the drive.

  Free for the day, I sling my bag and swing my hips along the path through the park, never sure when and how Porter will show up, but sure that he will. It turns out he was right, he has become a habit.

  Each car is different. Every day is new. He just rolls up, rrvvvvvvvt, and my life changes. When my butt settles into the warp of someone else’s seat, it feels as if Porter and I are starting again, fresh and new.

  The smell of a stranger’s perfume, the feel of the upholstery, the wrappers and maps and pens and glove box, are a discovery each time. It’s a lot like my relationship, if you can call it that, with him.

  It’s bits and pieces that I stick together in my mind to make a whole. Two hours here and then ten minutes there. Part of a story about his dad that is cut short ’cause the car we are roaming around in is due back, or a long description of the scar that I noticed on his hand and how he got it when he was twelve and wanted to paint his bedroom and tried to open a can of black semigloss with a humongous flat screwdriver that slipped out of the groove and stabbed him in the hand that was trying to hold everything steady.

  I know that he and Big Duff don’t exactly get along but tolerate each other. That Big Duff walked out on Porter and his mom when Porter was five and then drank himself into a hole. That Big Duff is now clean and sober (surprise to me) and has a toaster oven that he likes to cook personal pizzas in. That Porter has to show him how to do it each and every time. That Porter thinks Big Duff’s cigarettes or the toaster oven are going to burn the house down one night.

  I have never seen it, the house about to go up in toaster oven flames, but I imagine a leather sofa and matching love seat covered in sloppy vinyl tape Xs that hide the cigarette burns and worn spots. It is very man decorated and has a slight smell, probably from the oversplashing of Big Duff’s cologne as he leaves for his dates.

  I know that Big Duff does three things religiously—Wednesday night AA meetings, a 6:00 A.M. tee time on Thursdays, and Sunday morning service—and that he is not happy that Porter will not join him in any of the three.

  Porter is hard to pin down, so I know how Big Duff feels. He changes cars the way I change outfits or lip gloss. He can appear in a car borrowed from someone at a tennis lesson, or in a Jeep with a fresh buff and wax, even in a gold Mercedes owned by a bronzed trophy wife spending the day in the club spa. I hop in, and Porter slides his arm along the back of the seat, fingers sparking their way across the upholstery before they light onto my tan shoulder and we take off.

  I never know where we are going. It could be the park, or the quarry, maybe the lake, or even the curvy road that goes past the bluff. With Porter it seems nothing is out of the way or out of bounds or too far. It’s so unpredictable that it’s perfect.

  One time we spent the morning parked in front of the big screen at the abandoned drive-in theater two towns over. The screen was slashed, but the white Porsche was brand-new. Oddly, the dash, and practically every other surface visible from the driver’s seat, was covered in neon-colored Post-it notes, the little teeny, tiny ones that are practically impossible to write on. They were stuck to the odometer, the radio display, and the cup holders. They were everywhere.

  I put my feet up on the dash and leaned my head back, laughing as Porter peeled off each note, squinted, and attempted to decipher the elfin handwriting, reading it out loud if he could, before he put the note back in a completely different spot. Later that day I found a bright pink Post-it stuck to the bottom of my sandal. Scratched and dirty, it said simply “Dry cleaning.” I folded it up and stashed it away in the front pocket of my backpack. Someone’s shirts may be forgotten, but I will remember that day always.

  Eight days later we drove for forever in a totally dirty and disgusting Cadillac with green and purple Mardi Gras beads hanging from the rearview mirror and crumbs of unknown origin all over the floor. Running out, doors left open, we dipped our feet into a river three counties away from home, cool and mossy, just to run back up the bank and drive home with dripping ankles in time for Porter to return the car to an old man in plaid golf pants. Porter told me the next day that the guy tipped him fifteen bucks for taking such good care of it.

  Sometimes he drives by with only a minute to spare and we get orange juice and powdered sugar doughnuts and make out on the hood of some random car in the parking lot at the Supervalue. He is sticky sweet, and I want to swallow him whole.

  I can’t imagine how to explain this confusion and anticipation and unexpected delight to anyone, especially to anyone in my family. So for now I don’t. I know I am safe because my mother is buried in invitation samples and calligraphy choices and Shane is hidden under a helmet, sweating it up on the fifty-yard line blocks away.

  You would think I would be used to it by now, but Porter still leaves me feeling wide awake and trembling. Before, I knew exactly what was going to happen and how and with whom and when. But life with Porter rolls by so fast, a moving feast of kissing and supermarket baked goods and sneaking around.

  With Shane it’s like someone is leaning on the brakes, hard. We spend our nights stuck, watching movies or minigolfing, where I always win because his hammy hands are too big to maneuver the tiny putter. We eat burgers and fries at the drive-in, the tray resting on his car door, the dripping glass mugs filled with soda, and Shane’s hand wet and heavy on my thigh.

  I don’t fit in Shane’s car anymore. And I used to think it was made for me. I know if I angle my head the right way, I can see myself in the visor mirror and the side mirror at the same time. One of my tampons is buried, in case of emergency, in the back of the compact glove box. My hairbrush is tossed onto the backseat. The interior smells of my perfume. I own this guy.

  But I find myself pulling at the seat belt now, stretching it out away from me. It is rubbing my neck, chafing me and pressing me too tight into the seat. I struggle, and Shane reaches over, touching my neck, trying to lean in and kiss it, asking, “Here?”

  I swat him away, complaining, “It hurts.”

  He is quicksand. The more I fight, the farther in I fall. I feel caught and confused. Finally I give in and close my eyes.

  I see fields
and farms rolling by in my mind, the ground soft and dark as little green plants shoot up in the morning sun, a bright smile and bright eyes behind the wheel next to me, the road open and unknown before us.

  This road exists in a space that is all mine. I don’t have to share it with anyone. It is the most important part of my life but is totally separate from my actual life. It is not one piece of a matching set, it hasn’t been done before, I didn’t just memorize the steps while watching Freddie’s feet tap, tap, tap as the curtain lifted.

  When Shane’s lips brush against my ear, my eyes pop open and everything skids to a stop. Reality snaps into focus, and I know exactly where this is headed, whether I want it or not—more Friday nights, more fumbling around in the backseat, more sloppy kisses and copped feels and constantly holding hands in the hallway.

  I feel like the last car in the Fourth of July parade, the one stuck behind the horses and the high school band, held up by the Hi-Steppers, the local third-grade baton twirlers who, year after year, never actually seem to learn to twirl a baton. I am idling.

  Chapter Eight

  Valerie is officially the color of my mother’s morning coffee. Yes, in six weeks she has become a light, cancery brown, the human approximation of a double nonfat mocha with extra foam and two pink packets of sweetener.

  I admit, I had my doubts that tanning was even possible for her when she walked into the pool that first day all frail and pasty and white, then walked out later all pink and broiled, but today, as I watch her through the squeaky clean glass of the office window, the cool metallic honeycomb of the pool fence and gray sky as her backdrop, she definitely looks a little less sickly. Who knows? By the end of the summer she could resemble a real person. Maybe.

  I grab a pen and quickly scribble my initials onto the wrinkled, water-spotted staff sign-in sheet. It says KEEP IT SAFE OUT THERE! Someone has turned the dot of the exclamation point into the head of a swimmer, drowning in a sea of ballpoint blue waves. A black marker shark swims in to bite his ankles.

  I scoop up my rolled towel and whistle and stop to check myself in the mirror hanging next to the peeling door frame. Ignoring the gawking freshman boys watching my every move and Margo with the man voice, I stride across the deck, my suit riding higher with each long, hip-swinging step.

  Valerie does an about-face, stalls, and then matches her pace to mine so that we are walking along together. She is wearing white knee socks and those exercise sandal things with a wide-striped halter suit. Ouch. And she wonders why she can’t get a date. Actually, I don’t know if she wonders that, since we never talk about that kind of stuff. But please, there’s her answer. She looks like a broasted chicken with shoes on. Slip clonk, slip clonk, her socks and sandals are an evil combo as she tries to keep up with me.

  “Shane was looking for you,” she says, completely out of breath.

  I pretend I don’t care and simultaneously wonder if I really even do as I remember in delicious detail the car, the kissing, and the store-bought cinnamon coffee cake that was this morning.

  “I told him I didn’t know where you were,” she says.

  Catching her breath, she holds her hand out and takes my towel from me. I pull myself up onto the first rung of the red lifeguard chair. Reaching down, I take my towel back and ask, “Yeah, what did he say?”

  “He asked me who I was.”

  I smile, and she slip clonks away.

  Troy blows his whistle long and loud, and the pool splits open with a spectacular cannonball. It’s always a cannonball. A ring of sharp waves marks the point of impact as the first kid in finally bobs to the surface, his smile and splash greeted by the whoops and cheers of a clump of skinny-legged third-grade boys. They high-five each other and line up to take turns at cannonballing themselves. One right after the other, knobby knees hugged to bony chests, pa-wump, pa-wump, pa-wump. Their splashes fly high, sprinkling down on my bare thighs as I settle into my shift under a troubled summer sky. The realization that I am now indebted to Valerie sinks in slowly as the cannonball water drools down my legs and pools into a warm puddle at my feet.

  The clouds drop lower and lower until they almost brush against the top of my shoulders. I look around the pool. Parents are nervously glancing toward the sky, caught between a few more minutes of peace or dragging a crying kid out of the water. The official rule is sprinkles are safe, but thunder and lightning clear the pool immediately, no exceptions.

  Troy is standing on the other side of the pool. He straddles the red 5FT marker, his toes curling over the edge as he watches the sky for lightning. I can practically see his fingers crossing and uncrossing from here. He is hoping, wishing, praying even for a lightning bolt or a clap of thunder. Then he can chill out, roll a fat one, and maybe watch some TV. All around him, even the hopeful are giving up, tying bikini strings, pulling on T-shirts, and packing up sunscreen. It is not going to happen today.

  Somewhere behind me, in the quickly dimming light, Valerie is on a frayed Fingerhut beach towel, continuing her assault on anemia and our assigned summer reading list. I crank my head around to look at what she is straining to read, the book just inches from her face. April Morning. Right. Something about a boy and a war, maybe even some drums. I haven’t read it and have no plans to. Why would I? I have two older sisters. We live in a small town with a tiny school system. The same teachers have been teaching the same classes and assigning the same texts since the dawn of time. My copy, complete with Yorke’s faded yellow highlights and Freddie’s meticulous notes neatly written in the margins, is just waiting for me at home. I’m all set.

  But Valerie is plowing through it, page by flipping page. This book and the entire summer reading list, too. She has a ritual. Each day she unpacks the books and stacks them up. The finished ones are placed to her left with a little pat. Then those about to be tackled are arranged, most likely in alphabetical order, to her right.

  There’s no way I would schlep all those books around all summer, but Valerie does. I want to admire her spirit. I do, but I am finding it hard to look past her spine as it bumps and curves over that mountain of reading material.

  Her bid for valedictorian, her hard work, it’s all there, printed and bound and stacked up for me to see. I can almost make out one of the titles from up here: Guilt. Now Available in Paperback! I turn, twisting to face the water again.

  At the first crack of thunder, I jump up, knees locking, and blow my whistle, joining the four other lifeguards shrilly clearing the pool. Moms panic and grab kids. It’s a little like Jaws, but without the screaming or the mechanical shark.

  The place clears in about five minutes. Striped towels? Gone. Bicycle racks? Empty. Pool? Flat and still. It is amazing how fast people will move when they are about to be rained on, especially when most of them are already wet. Out of the corner of my eye I see Troy stretch his arms up toward the sky and clap his hands over his head. God, he’s such a burnout.

  Of course Valerie is the last to leave. I am already outside the fence, sitting on the hill, shoes off, chin resting on my knees as I wait for my ride, while she dawdles, kneeling on the concrete pool deck, frantically cramming her many, many, many books into her striped canvas tote.

  She is always the last one in the school hallways at the final bell, too, pissing off the janitor and the teacher who just wants to stop answering her questions and go home. Right now she is pissing off Troy.

  I lower my forehead to rest on my crossed arms and curl up tight against the wind. Eons pass, and then I finally hear Troy’s keys jangling, the lock twisting, and the clank of the gate. The pool is closed.

  “Alas! Here we see her, our fair Leah. Left behind, yet waiting patiently, ever faithful, ever hopeful, for her knight in shining armor.”

  I lift my chin to find Valerie standing before me, orating like the Greek chorus. Thing is, I don’t really need the recap. I can feel the cold, scratchy grass beneath my ass right now, so I get it. I am living it.

  Maybe Valerie’s been speed-readi
ng too much Shakespeare. Ignoring her as she walks to her car, I search every set of headlights in the distance for the one that is coming for me.

  With an overly dramatic flourish of her free hand and a less than graceful curtsy that is hampered by her heavy book bag, Valerie stops next to her German rust bucket and calls, “Do you need a ride?”

  Nice, but yeah, right. I can just see us together, Valerie behind the wheel and me riding shotgun.

  “Umm . . . thanks, but I’m sure Shane will show.”

  “Shane?” she says with a humph as she props her door open with her skinny hip and throws her book bag across the seat with both hands, granny style. A spring squeaks loudly when it lands. After climbing into the driver’s seat, she pulls the creaky door shut and leans out the open window with a sly smile.

  “You sure that’s who you’re hoping for?” she asks before she backs up in a series of rolling jerks, momentarily blinding me when she flips on her headlights during jerk number two. She waves and drives off into the gathering storm. My feet are cold, my butt is sore, and the sky is as dark as night, practically. Turning away, I don’t wave back at her. I just see spots.

  The air today is even more oppressive than my mood. I can feel it all around me as I give up and start to walk home through the park. The tall green grass at the edge of the road dips, lies flat, and then snaps back to attention. The trees swaying in the strengthening wind seem too fragile; they bend toward me at an impossible angle, and the headlights that suddenly pop over the crest of the hill are too bright and piercing against the greenish gray horizon. I step up my pace. A short, muffled yell in the distance stops my heart and slows my feet for a second. I’m sure it was just someone calling for a dog or a kid or, you know, warning me that the end is near. I lean into the wind, heart flying, cursing my parents, my sisters, Shane, even Porter a little bit, for leaving me out here. Adrift.