by Jenny Lee
Thirty minutes later Kimmie felt well enough to go ring in the New Year and rejoin the party. As she was pushing through the crowd trying to get to the kitchen for some Fiji water (she had a serious case of dry mouth going), someone standing behind her reached around and handed Kimmie a glass of champagne. For a split second she thought it must be Dustin and was happy, but when she turned around she found herself staring not at Dustin, but at the most beautiful teenage boy she had ever seen. Blond hair and blue eyes had never been her type, but this guy was too gorgeous for her to care about types anymore. She remembered thinking he was like a beautiful piece of sea glass in a pile of boring old seashells.
“Do you have someone to kiss at midnight?” He spoke up, trying to be heard over the pulsing dance beat of Migos’ “Bad and Boujee” remix.
“No!” she yelled back, surprised at her boldness.
“Shall we then? It’s bad luck to ring in a New Year without a kiss from a beautiful girl.”
The next thing she knew, everyone around her began counting down from ten. Kimmie was soon screaming along with the other three hundred partygoers, and when they reached number one, she closed her eyes and lifted her chin to this handsome, nameless, shimmering sea glass of a boy. He kissed her, giving her the most magical kiss of her life. (There had only been three others, but still!) Fireworks were going off in her head just like in the movies, though she realized later what she had heard was the TV. It was the first time Kimmie felt truly happy since her “accident,” the accident that she was trying so hard to bury and walk away from. That was the advice her dad gave after her surgery: “You’re young, kiddo, sometimes dreams don’t work out. Find a new one and move on. A pretty girl like you has plenty of options.” So that’s what she had been trying to do lately, to be more like her sister, Lolly, and find happiness in friends, clothes, Instagram, or even a boyfriend. Though it was nauseating to listen to Lolly gush over Steven, Kimmie sometimes found herself envious of her sister’s relationship. Maybe a boy could give her that same feeling she had had out on the ice, a this-is-exactly-where-I’m-supposed-to-be-in-this-big-wide-world kind of feeling. And now here was this boy who thought she was beautiful and picked her to kiss when he could have had any girl at the party, so she decided to give in and enjoy it.
After midnight the boy thanked her for the kiss, asked for her iPhone and said he’d put his number in it, instructing her to text him so he could take her for high tea. After he handed her phone back, he winked and wished her a Happy New Year. He then turned and disappeared into the drunken writhing crowd now dancing to the Bieber version of “Despacito.”
She didn’t want to look at his name until she was alone, so she pushed her way through the drunken crowd again, heading to her secret bathroom. Passing the library, she glimpsed Dustin sitting on a couch between two girls. She wasn’t sure if he saw her, and knew it was rude not to wish the one friend she met at the party a Happy New Year, but at that moment she didn’t care. She was on a mission to learn the name of the beautiful blond boy who had slipped his tongue into her mouth at midnight.
“V is for Vronsky” was what he wrote for his first name in her contacts, and he put “Count” under the heading of title. Ten minutes later, Steven and Lolly had found Kimmie twirling around in the spacious bathroom with her arms outstretched singing “V is for Vronsky, V is for Vronsky, V is for Vronsky!” Over and over she twirled, oblivious to Steven and her sister standing there in the doorway, watching her. The last thing she remembered from the night was hearing her older sister yell at her boyfriend. “OMFG, Steven! Kimmie’s still all fucked up! Kimmie! Snap out of it!”
“Kimmie?” Dustin said, his voice snapping her back to reality.
“Yes?” she answered, feeling guilty for thinking about another guy when she was with a perfectly nice one now.
“I’m going to the restroom,” he said.
Kimmie smiled and nodded, but as soon as Dustin left the table she pulled her phone out to check for texts. She had one new one, which filled her with hope, but she frowned when she saw it was from her friend Victoria. Kimmie ignored her friend’s text and instead composed one of her own, hitting “V is for Vronsky,” which was saved in her favorites. She typed: Missed you at the rink tonight. Hope you had a good day. *pair of ice skates emoji* *snowman emoji* She hesitated for a moment, debating whether the ice skates emoji would be seen as redundant or as cute like she intended. She deleted the pair of ice skates, left the snowman, and hit send.
Bubbles appeared immediately and her pulse quickened in anticipation, but they soon disappeared and left her feeling annoyed and stupid. She wished she hadn’t sent any emoji at all now. She put her phone back in her mini Prada backpack and looked up to see that Dustin hadn’t even made it to the restroom yet. He was talking to four teenage boys she didn’t recognize and the whole table erupted in laughter from something Dustin said.
So weird, Kimmie thought to herself. Who knew nerds could be so funny?
XI
Dustin didn’t even have to go to the bathroom, but he needed a break from Kimmie’s dazzling beauty. He had to admit the evening was going far better than he’d imagined possible, and he hoped to finish strong, which was exactly why he was in the men’s room doing some of the breathing exercises his therapist recommended he try whenever he felt anxious enough to bring on one of his panic attacks.
The secondary reason he had to come to the bathroom was he had to answer his mom’s texts before she had a panic attack of her own, did a “find my phone” search, and called his father to track him down and bring him home. Dustin not calling to let his mom know he wasn’t coming home for dinner was completely out of character for him. Then again, being out with a gorgeous blonde on a Thursday night wasn’t just out of character for him, more like he’d been taken over by a much cooler alien life-form that was living its best life in his body. He needed to call his mother, but first he needed to calm down. When he was around Kimmie he could barely breathe, let alone think straight, which reminded him that he had his inhaler in his pocket. He hadn’t needed it in months, but he still carried it around for peace of mind. He took it out and was about to take a hit, when he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror. “Don’t be a herb. You can do this,” he said, realizing that the only characters in movies who gave themselves pep talks in the mirror were losers. Except for maybe John Travolta in Pulp Fiction right before Uma Thurman OD’d on heroin and had to get a shot of adrenaline straight to her heart. Which reminded him, he should probably get back to Kimmie. He texted his mom a quick apology and explained where he was and who he was with, deciding it was better for her to spin about a girl than worry he was on drugs.
He had been surprised Kimmie was allowed out so late on a school night. When he asked her about it, she said she and her sister were at their father’s town house for the week, and her father was working late on a huge case. Kimmie then mentioned in the next breath that whenever her dad worked late, her “Stepmonster” would use this as an excuse to go out on the town with her friends and drink too much. Her real mother was much stricter about school nights, but she was in Saint Lucia with her new celebrity chef boyfriend who was opening a restaurant at some fancy resort, which meant no one was keeping track of her or Lolly’s whereabouts.
When Dustin heard this, he told Kimmie they could go grab dinner first if she preferred, but she said, “Frozen hot chocolate is a perfectly nutritious dinner in my book.” He was happy she had a sweet tooth, because he had a big one himself.
While they waited for their order he had asked her whether she was heartbroken over her career-ending injury, hoping it wasn’t too soon for so personal of a question. She’d seemed fine to talk about it, quickly saying her dad told her it was pointless to wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t busted her knee up, because she did. And her mom still got angry and looked for blame even though it was no one’s fault. Kimmie said Dustin was sweet to ask, though, and then commented that since she had been home not on
e of her so-called friends here had bothered to ask her that question. She was disappointed but wouldn’t go so far as to say she was heartbroken over the whole thing.
Now Kimmie turned the tables and asked Dustin whether he had ever had his heart broken. “Not really,” he said. His longest relationship to date lasted exactly one session at Harvard Summer School last year. He told Kimmie the truth and said he’d had his version of a “camp romance” with a girl named Susie S. from Philly but it never got serious. “We both were into classic films, but let’s just say it takes more than understanding Last Year at Marienbad to make my heart sing.” Kimmie didn’t respond for a long time, and he was getting worried. “Talking about another girl is rude,” he added, hoping this would prompt her to say something. “And coupling it with a pretentious French cinema reference probably made it unbearable. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I totally get it. And, besides, I asked,” she said in a half-hearted way that made him question whether she was being honest. What Dustin didn’t know was that Kimmie was only quiet because she was silently praying he wouldn’t ask her if she had ever been with someone who made her heart sing. She was no idiot. She knew Dustin liked her, and she liked him, too. She just didn’t like him enough, or maybe she just liked that he liked her. She had felt her heart sing only once in her life and it was on the same night she had met Dustin, but it wasn’t him—it was Count Vronsky who had played her heartstrings.
It was this whole awkward exchange that drove Dustin to excuse himself to the bathroom in the first place. On his way there, he stopped to talk to a few guys he knew from school. Since it was a table of four teenage boys, they had noticed who Dustin was with and demanded details. Nerds like them didn’t have hot chocolate with gorgeous girls on the Hot List, unless she was a blood relative or needed to copy homework. Dustin knew he could have told these guys any story he wanted, but that was not his way. He told them the truth, which was that he had no fucking clue what was going on. His brutal honesty was lauded with laughter all around.
As Dustin approached the table after the bathroom, he saw that Kimmie had a smile on her face and looked lost in thought. God, she’s so beautiful, he thought. I wonder if she’s thinking about me? “What are you thinking about?” he asked, taking his seat across from her.
“Nothing much,” Kimmie lied, looking down at her hands. “I guess I was wondering what was happening across the park with Lolly and Steven.” Upon hearing herself, she realized there was truth to her statement as well. Lolly was her sister, so of course she was wondering if she was okay.
“Do you think they’ll work it out?” Dustin asked. The whole situation was causing him much consternation. Whether he liked it or not, he was personally invested, especially now that he was benefitting from it. Even though he believed that Lolly should break up with Steven for what he did to her, it was obvious how much Lolly adored Steven. And there was a small part of him that hoped they would make it because he’d be lying if he hadn’t thought about the four of them hanging out together. Perhaps Anna could help smooth things over.
“I don’t know,” Kimmie said. “But if I were her, I’d dump his ass.”
“Just so you know, even though I’m friends with Steven, I think he’s one hundred percent in the wrong,” Dustin said. “And if you could, please tell Lolly I’m sorry she’s had to deal with all of this.”
Kimmie studied Dustin’s serious face and could tell he meant everything he’d just said. His honesty shone through, which was why she felt so safe and secure in his presence.
After the check arrived, Dustin convinced Kimmie to let him pay by reminding her that one of the cornerstone tenets of feminism was a woman’s right to choose, and if she chose to let him pay for her dessert, then she was still a feminist in good standing. She laughed, agreeing to his logic, which pleased him because it made their outing if not a real date, then at least date-like, which gave him the confidence to ask if he could walk her home, to which she said yes.
“I believe you say what you mean, Dustin. And I like it,” she told him as they strolled across Park Avenue.
“I say what I mean, I do what I say.”
“What’s that from?” Kimmie asked.
“It’s a quote from one of my favorite movies. Heat with Al Pacino.”
“Al Pacino wasn’t in Heat. That was Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.”
“They were in The Heat. I’m talking about the movie from the nineties with Pacino and De Niro. Written and directed by Michael Mann. One of my dad’s ex-girlfriends who lived with us when I was younger loved it and was always telling me about it. Eventually my dad let me watch it with her. It was only my second R-rated movie. It’s a cat-and-mouse bank heist movie with one of the most famous shoot-’em-up scenes of all time.”
They were now only a block and a half from her father’s brownstone off Madison Avenue, standing at the corner, waiting for the walk signal to change. Their time together was almost done.
“That’s a weird movie for a woman to like,” Kimmie said, unaware she was being sexist.
“I thought so, too, but she was much cooler than my dad. And even though it was this high-octane action movie it was also a love story. All the men in it loved the women in their lives, which she found romantic.” Speaking of romantic, the two of them were now standing in front of her house in the middle of a snowstorm. If Dustin had the ability to freeze time right then he would’ve rushed to the nearest electronic store, bought a drone with a 4K camera and night vision, and recorded this moment in time. If he could get a fish-eye lens on the camera, he was sure he could create a snow globe effect, with the twirl and dazzle of snowflakes in the night air and this beautiful girl he was with, cinematic proof that this night actually happened.
“Did you find it romantic when you saw it?” Kimmie asked.
“Not when I was twelve. But I watched it again last year and I understood what she meant. Though to me, Heat is more a movie about honor. Honoring your friends, honoring your job even if you’re a thief, honoring your commitment to justice if you’re a cop. Most of all it’s about honoring the code you choose to live by, whatever that code may be. But even though the men in the movie loved their women, they couldn’t do right by them. Sometimes people can’t help but make poor choices and hurt the ones they love, I guess.” Dustin suddenly felt foolish going on and on about a movie she had never seen. “Sorry, I’m a hopeless film nerd.”
Kimmie grabbed his arm and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Stop. You don’t sound like a nerd at all. You sound passionate, which is a wonderful thing. If anything, you’re making me want to watch the movie right this second, but more for the romance aspect. Call me a cynic, but with all the shit going on with Lolly and Steven I’m not feeling so big on the honor of men…” She paused, knowing that Dustin may be perhaps the first man of honor she’d met in New York so far. Last year, she would have put Gabe, her ice dancing partner, into this category, but he’d proved to be a disappointment as of late, barely calling her anymore now that he had just paired up with some Swedish skater named Maja.
“Don’t. I mean, you can, of course. I’m not trying to tell you what you can and can’t do,” Dustin fumbled. “But maybe we could watch it sometime … together? The two of us or with others.” God, I’m a babbling fool around her.
“Perhaps. But not tonight. It’s late and I should go.” Kimmie smiled and ran up the steps to her front door. Once at the top of her stoop, she turned around to face him. “Thank you for the frozen hot chocolate and the walk home,” she said, followed by a little curtsy.
Dustin answered her curtsy with a deep bow. “The honor, my fair Kimmie, was all mine.”
Kimmie entered the front door and hurried to the living room window to watch Dustin walk off into the snowy dark night. Did she detect a little spring in his step? Yes, she most certainly did.
XII
Anna and Lolly had grown tired of talking and took a mental break to watch Beyoncé’s Lemonade
videos. This was Lolly’s idea, her rationale being that Queen Bey had been cheated on by her man, and this album was how she worked her way through the experience. Anna wasn’t sure if this was a good idea or not, but she was getting desperate to reach some sort of resolution and was willing to try anything. They watched the whole thing in total silence, and afterward Anna turned off the TV and faced her friend. “Okay, it’s your turn to face the music. Lolly, are you ready? Do. You. Love. Steven?”
The first time Anna asked Lolly this same question hours ago, Lolly’s reply was that she didn’t love him and in fact wanted him dead. Then it was, “Maybe I love him, but I know I shouldn’t because he’s a lying cheat monster.” Then it was, “Okay, I love him, but I still want him dead. I’m fine with wearing black for a year.” Then it was, “I love him, but I hate him, too.” Then it was, “I love him, I guess, but clearly he doesn’t love me.” (Anna never let this statement go as she reassured Lolly a hundred times that she knew Steven absolutely loved her, and that his cheating on her didn’t mean he didn’t love her, it just meant he was a pathetic, idiotic teenage boy.)
Finally, they were at, “I love him, but how can I possibly stay with him after he humiliated me like this?” which seemed like progress to Anna. Though in response Anna said that she herself wasn’t a girl who cared what people thought, since it was none of their damn business. Lolly agreed with Anna, but she knew Steven didn’t. The example she used to prove her point was admitting to Anna that their whole screw-a-versary was a sham.
“I’m still a virgin,” Lolly said in small voice. “I just let Steven tell people we’re having sex.”
Anna’s curiosity was piqued. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lolly sniffled and said she knew it was confusing, but the only reason she agreed to call it that was because of Steven’s dumb male pride. A year ago, when it was time to celebrate the six-month anniversary of the day they first decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend and changed their status across all social media, Lolly found out that Steven didn’t want to celebrate it. This caused their first big fight. Steven said anniversaries were for married people and he refused to do something so girly.
