by Jenny Han
After school, I’m walking out of class when my phone buzzes in my purse. It’s Peter.
I’m out on parole. Meet me at my car!
I race to the parking lot, where Peter is in his car waiting for me with the heat on. Grinning at me, he says, “Aren’t you going to kiss your man? I just got released from prison.”
“Peter! This isn’t a joke. Are you suspended?”
He smirks. “Nah. I sweet-talked my way out of it. Principal Lochlan loves me. Still, I could’ve been. If it had been anybody else . . .”
Oh, Peter. “Please don’t brag to me right now.”
“When I came out of Lochlan’s office, there were a bunch of sophomore girls waiting for me to give me a standing O. They were like, ‘Kavinsky, you’re so romantic.’” He hoots, and I give him a look. He pulls me to his side. “Hey, they know I’m taken. There’s only one girl I want to see in an Amish bikini.”
I laugh; I can’t help it. Peter loves attention, and I hate to be another girl who gives it to him, but he makes it really hard sometimes. Besides, it was kind of romantic.
He plants a kiss on my cheek, nuzzles against my face. “Didn’t I tell you I would take care of it, Covey?”
“You did,” I admit, patting his hair.
“So did I do a good job?”
“You did.” That’s all it takes for him to be happy, me telling him that he did a good job. He’s smiley all the way home. But I’m still thinking about it.
I beg off the lacrosse party I was supposed to go to with Peter tonight. I say it’s because I have to prepare for my meeting with Janette tomorrow, but we both know it’s more than that. He could call me on it, remind me that we promised to always tell the truth to each other, but he doesn’t. He knows me well enough to know that I just need to burrow in my little hobbit hole for a while, and when I’m ready, I’ll come out again and be all right.
That night I bake chai sugar cookies with cinnamon-eggnog icing—they’re like a hug in your mouth. Baking calms me; it’s stabilizing. It’s what I do when I don’t want to think about anything hard. It is an activity that requires very little from you—you just follow the directions, and then at the end you have created something. From ingredients to an actual dessert. It’s like magic. Poof, deliciousness.
After midnight, I’ve set the cookies on the cooling rack and put on my cat pajamas, and I’m climbing into bed to read when there’s a knock at my window. I think it’s Chris, and I go to the window to check and see if I’ve locked it, but it’s not—it’s Peter! I push the window up. “Oh my God, Peter! What are you doing here?” I whisper, my heart pounding. “My dad’s home!”
Peter climbs in. He’s wearing a navy beanie on his head and a thermal with a puffy vest. Taking off the hat, he grins and says, “Shh. You’re gonna wake him up.”
I run to my door and lock it. “Peter! You can’t be here!” I am equal parts panicky and excited. I don’t know if a boy has ever been in my room before, not since Josh, and that was ages ago.
He’s already taking off his shoes. “Just let me stay for a few minutes.”
I cross my arms because I’m not wearing a bra and say, “If it’s only a few minutes, why are you taking off your shoes?”
He dodges this question. Plopping down on my bed, he says, “Hey, why aren’t you wearing your Amish bikini? It’s so hot.” I move to slap him upside the head, and he grabs my waist and hugs me to him. He buries his head in my stomach like a little boy. His voice muffled, he says, “I’m sorry all this is happening because of me.”
I touch the top of his head; his hair feels soft and silky against my fingers. “It’s okay, Peter. I know it’s not your fault.” I glance at my moonbeam alarm clock. “You can stay for fifteen minutes, but then you have to go.” Peter nods and releases me. I sink down on the bed next to him and put my head on his shoulder. I hope the minutes go slow. “How was the party?”
“Boring without you.”
“Liar.”
He laughs an easy kind of laugh. “What did you bake tonight?”
“How do you know I baked?”
Peter breathes me in. “You smell like sugar and butter.”
“Chai sugar cookies with eggnog icing.”
“Can I take some with me?”
I nod, and we lean our backs against the wall. He slides his arm around me, safe and secure. “Twelve minutes left,” I say into his shoulder, and I feel rather than see him smile.
“Then let’s make it good.” We start to kiss, and I’ve definitely never kissed a boy in my bed before. This is brand-new. I doubt I’ll ever be able to think of my bed the same way again. Between kisses he says, “How much time do I have left?”
I glance over at my clock. “Seven minutes.” Maybe I should tack on an extra five . . .
“Can we lie down, then?” he suggests.
I shove him in the shoulder. “Peter!”
“I just want to hold you for a little bit! If I was going to try to do more, I’d need more than seven minutes, trust me.”
So we lie down, my back to his chest, him curved around me, his arms slung around mine. He snuggles his chin into the hollow between my neck and my shoulder. It might be my favorite thing we’ve ever done. I like it so much I have to keep reminding myself to be vigilant that we don’t fall asleep. I want to close my eyes but I keep them trained on my clock.
“Spooning’s the freaking best,” he sighs, and I wish he didn’t say it, because it makes me think of how many times he must have held Genevieve just like this.
At the fifteen-minute mark, I sit up so fast he jumps. I clap him on the shoulder. “Time to go, buddy.”
His mouth falls into a sulk. “Come on, Covey!”
I shake my head, resolute.
If you hadn’t made me think of Genevieve, I would’ve given you five minutes more.
After I send Peter off with a bag of cookies, I lie back down and close my eyes and imagine his arms are still around me, and that’s how I fall asleep.
11
I GO TO JANETTE’S OFFICE at Belleview the next day, armed with my notebook and my pen. “I had an idea for a craft class. ‘Scrapbooking to the Oldies.’” Janette nods at me and I continue. “I can teach the residents how to scrapbook, and we’ll go through all their old photos and mementos and listen to oldies.”
“That sounds great,” she says.
“So I could run that class and also I could take on Friday night cocktail hour?”
Janette takes a bite of her tuna-fish sandwich and swallows. “We might cut the cocktail hour altogether.”
“Cut it?” I repeat in disbelief.
She shrugs. “Attendance has been waning ever since we started offering a computer class. The residents have figured out Netflix. It’s a whole new world out there.”
“What if we made it more of an event? Like, more special?”
“We don’t really have the budget for anything fancy, Lara Jean. I’m sure Margot’s told you how we have to make do around here. Our budget’s tiny.”
“No, no, it could be really DIY stuff. Just simple little touches will make all the difference. Like we could make a jacket mandatory for the men. And couldn’t we borrow glassware from the dining room instead of using plastic cups?” Janette is still listening, so I keep on going. “Why serve peanuts right out of the can, when we can put them in a nice bowl, right?”
“Peanuts taste like peanuts no matter the receptacle.”
“They’d taste more elegant served out of a crystal bowl.”
I’ve said too much. Janette is thinking this all sounds like too much trouble, I can tell. She says, “We don’t have crystal bowls, Lara Jean.”
“I’m sure I can scrounge one up at home,” I assure her.
“It sounds like a lot of work for every Friday night.”
“Well—maybe it could just be once a month. That would make it feel even more special. Why don’t we take a little hiatus and bring it back in full force in a month or so?” I suggest. “W
e can give people a chance to miss it. Build the anticipation and then really do it right.” Janette nods a begrudging nod, and before she can change her mind I say, “Think of me as your assistant, Janette. Leave it all to me. I’ll take care of everything.”
She shrugs. “Have at it.”
Chris and I are hanging out in my room that afternoon when Peter calls. “I’m driving by your house,” he says. “Wanna do something?”
“No!” Chris shouts into the phone. “She’s busy.”
He groans into my ear.
“Sorry,” I tell him. “Chris is over.”
He says he’ll call me later, and I’ve barely set down the phone when Chris grouses, “Please don’t become one of those girls who gets in a relationship and goes MIA.”
I’m very familiar with “those girls,” because Chris disappears every time she meets a new guy. Before I can remind her of this, she goes on. “And don’t be one of those lax groupies either. I fucking hate those groupies. Like, can’t they find a better thing to be a groupie for? Like a band? Oh my God, I would be so good at being a groupie for an actual, important band. Like being a muse, you know?”
“What happened to that idea about you starting your own band?”
Chris shrugs. “The guy who plays bass fucked up his hand skateboarding and then nobody felt like it anymore. Hey, do you want to drive to DC tomorrow night and see this band Felt Tip? Frank’s borrowing his dad’s van, so there’s probably room.”
I have no idea who Frank is, and Chris has probably only known him for all of two minutes. She always says people’s names like I should already know who they are. “I can’t—tomorrow’s a school night.”
She makes a face. “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re already becoming one of ‘those girls.’”
“That has nothing to do with it, Chris. A, my dad would never let me go to DC on a school night. B, I don’t know who Frank is, and I’m not riding in the back of his van. C, I have a feeling Felt Tip is not my kind of music. Is it my kind of music?”
“No,” she admits. “Fine, but the next thing I ask you to do, you have to say yes. None of this A-B-C ‘here are all of the reasons why’ bullshit.”
“All right,” I agree, though my stomach does a little lurch, because with Chris you never know what you’re getting yourself into. Though, also knowing Chris, she’s already forgotten about it.
We settle onto the floor and get down to the business of manis. Chris grabs one of my gold nail pens and starts painting tiny stars on her thumbnail. I’m doing a lavender base and dark purple flowers with marigold centers. “Chris, will you do my initials on my right hand?” I hold up my hand for her. “Starting with the ring finger down to my thumb. LJSC.”
“Fancy font or basic?”
I give her a look. “Come on. Who are you talking to here?” At the same time we both say, “Fancy.”
Chris is good with doing script. So good, in fact, that as I’m admiring her handiwork, I say, “Hey, I have an idea. What if we started doing manicures at Belleview? The residents would love that.”
“For how much?”
“For free! You could think of it like community service but not mandatory. Out of the goodness of your heart. Some of the residents can’t cut their own nails very well. Their hands get really gnarled. Toes, too. The nails get thick and . . .” I trail off when I see the disgusted look on her face. “Maybe we could have a tip jar.”
“I’m not going to cut old people’s toenails for free. I’m not doing it for less than fifty bucks a set at the very least. I’ve seen my grandpa’s feet; his toenails are like eagle talons.” She gets back to my thumb, giving me a beautiful cursive C with a flourish. “Done. God, I’m good.” She throws her head back and yells, “Kitty! Get your booty in here!”
Kitty comes running into my room. “What? I was in the middle of something.”
“‘I was in the middle of something,’” Chris mimics. “If you go get me a Diet Coke, I’ll do your nails for you like I did Lara Jean’s.” I display my hands lavishly like a hand model. Chris counts with her fingers. “Kitty Covey fits perfectly.”
Kitty bounds off, and I call after her, “Bring me a soda too!”
“With ice!” Chris screams. Then she sighs a wistful sigh. “I wish I had a little sister. I would be amazing at bossing her around.”
“Kitty doesn’t usually listen so well. It’s only because she looks up to you.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Chris picks at a fuzzy on her sock, smiling to herself.
Kitty used to look up to Genevieve, too. She was sort of in awe of her. “Hey,” I say suddenly. “How’s your grandma?”
“She’s all right. She’s pretty tough.”
“And how’s . . . the rest of your family? Everything all right?”
Chris shrugs. “Sure. Everything’s fine.”
Hmm. If Chris doesn’t know, how bad could things be with Genevieve’s family? Either not that bad or, more likely, just another one of Genevieve’s deceptions. Even when we were little she lied a lot, whether it was to get out of trouble with her mom, in which case she’d blame me, or to gain sympathy from adults.
Chris peers at me. “What are you thinking about so hard? Are you still stressing over your sex tape?”
“It’s not a sex tape if you’re not having sex in it!”
“Calm down, Lara Jean. I’m sure Peter’s grandstanding did the trick and people will leave it alone. They’ll be on to the next thing.”
“I hope you’re right,” I say.
“Trust me, there’ll be someone or something new to obsess over by next week.”
It turns out that Chris is right, that people have moved on to the next thing. On Tuesday, a sophomore boy named Clark is caught masturbating in the boys locker room, and it’s all everyone can talk about. Lucky me!
12
ACCORDING TO STORMY, THERE ARE two kinds of girls in this world. The kind who breaks hearts and the kind who gets her heart broken. One guess as to which kind of girl Stormy is.
I’m sitting cross-legged on Stormy’s velvet fainting couch, going through a big shoe box of mostly black-and-white photos. She’s agreed to join my scrapbooking class, and we’re getting a head start organizing. I have several piles going. Stormy: the early years; her teenagehood; her first, second, and fourth weddings—no pictures from her third wedding, because they eloped.
“I am a heartbreaker, but you, Lara Jean, are a girl who gets her heart broken.” She lifts her eyebrows at me for emphasis. I think she forgot to pencil them in today.
I mull this over. I don’t want to be a girl who gets her heart broken, but I also don’t really want to break boys’ hearts. “Stormy, did you have a lot of boyfriends in high school?”
“Oh, sure. Dozens. That’s how we did it in my day. Drive-in on Friday with Burt and cotillion with Sam on Saturday. We kept our options open. A girl didn’t settle down unless she was supremely, supremely sure.”
“Sure that she liked him?”
“Sure that she wanted to marry him. Otherwise what was the point in ending all the fun?”
I pick up a picture of Stormy in a sea-foam formal gown, strapless with a full skirt. She looks like she could be Grace Kelly’s sneaky cousin, with her pale blond hair and the lift of her brow. There’s a boy standing next to her, and he isn’t very tall or particularly handsome, but there’s something about him. A glint in his eye. “Stormy, how old were you in this one?”
Stormy peers at it. “Sixteen or seventeen. About your age.”
“Who’s the boy?”
Stormy takes a closer look, her face wrinkling like a dried apricot. She taps her red fingernail on the picture. “Walter! We all called him Walt. He was a real charmer.”
“Was he your boyfriend?”
“No, he was just a boy I saw from time to time.” She waggles her pale eyebrows at me. “We went skinny-dipping out by the lake, and we got caught by the police. It was quite the scandale. I got to ride
home in a police car in nothing but a blanket.”
“And so . . . did people gossip about you?”
“Bien sûr.”
“I’ve had a little bit of a scandale of my own,” I say. Then I tell her about the hot tub, and the video, and all the fallout. I have to explain to her what a meme is. She is delighted; she’s practically vibrating from the salaciousness of it all.
“Excellent!” she crows. “I’m so relieved you have some bite to you. A girl with a reputation is so much more interesting than a Goody Two-shoes.”
“Stormy, this is on the Internet. The Internet is forever. It’s not just gossip at school. And also, I kind of am a Goody Two-shoes.”
“No, your sister Margaret’s the Goody Two-shoes.”
“Margot,” I correct.
“Well, she certainly seems like a Margaret. I mean, really, every Friday night at a nursing home! I’d have slit my wrists if I was a teenage girl spending all my beauty years at a damn nursing home. Excuse my French, darling.” She fluffs up the pillow behind her. “Oldest children are always high-achieving bores. My son Stanley is a frightful bore. He’s the worst. He’s a podiatrist, for God’s sake! I suppose it’s my fault for naming him Stanley. Not that I had any say in it. My mother-in-law insisted we name him after her dead husband. Good Lord, she was a crone.” Stormy takes a sip of her iced tea. “Middle children are supposed to have fun, you know. You and I, we have that in common. I was glad you hadn’t been coming around as much. I was hoping you were getting into trouble. Sounds like I was right. Although you might’ve come around a bit more.”
Stormy’s terrific at making a person feel guilty. She’s mastered the art of the injured sniff.
“Now that I’ve got a proper job here, I’ll be around a lot more often.”
“Well, not too often.” She perks up. “But next time bring that boy of yours. We could use some fresh blood around here. Give the place a jolt. Is he handsome?”
“Yes, he’s very handsome.” The handsomest of all the handsome boys.
