He sits up and finds his boxers on the back of the couch and slips them on. Then he hands my boxer briefs to me and turns away to gather up the rest of our clothes and to give me some privacy, which is kind of sweet considering there isn't any part of my body that he is not intimately acquainted with now. I smile, and over his shoulder he smiles back at me, then stretches out on the couch again and settles his head in my lap and gazes up at me. The hair on his chest is slightly matted with sweat. I run my fingers through it.
“Thank you,” I say.
He responds by taking my hand and pressing it to his mouth.
“Do you have any idea how many times I've looked at that little hint of hair above your top button and wondered what it led to? You'd be doing calculus problems on the board, and I'd be unbuttoning your shirt in my mind.”
“And all that time I thought you were thinking about differentials and derivatives and harmonic progression.”
“I
was
thinking about harmonic progression. I'm thinking about it right now.”
He rolls his eyes playfully at me, but then he presses his lips together and his expression grows serious.
“Uh-uh,” I say, pinching his lips together with my fingers. “There are no police banging on the door, no lightning strikes, no regrets. And if you keep frowning that way, you're going to hurt my feelings, not to mention my manhood.”
He smiles at that, then links his fingers with mine. “If anybody finds out, Robertâ”
“They won't. You have my word. I won't let that happen.”
He flattens my fingers with the palm of his hand, then draws them down to his mouth again and kisses my palm. “I am a bad teacher.”
I laugh. “No, you're not. We just found each other a few months too soon, that's all. By June, it won't even matter anymore.”
He reaches up and takes my wallet from the pocket of my jeans cast recklessly on the back of the futon. He opens it and thumbs through the contents. “Hmm, what is this? American Red Cross Lifeguard Certification. You're a lifeguard?”
“Last summer. The swan pool.”
“Which one is that?”
“Ridgewood. Do you ever take Kiki to the pool?”
“I might this summer. Are you lifeguarding again?”
“I don't know. Maybe. Would you be wearing a Speedo?”
He laughs and his head bounces lightly in my lap.
He shuffles the card to the back of the stack.
“How was your date tonight?” I ask, but what I want to ask is, “What's wrong?” Was it really just minutes ago that his body was moving so beautifully against mine, his hands everywhere at once, as if I were some text written in Braille that he needed to memorize? But already I can feel him slipping away. He's scared, I tell myself. But he has nothing to be afraid of.
“Oh, yeah. My date. I'd almost forgotten.” He's studying my school ID card.
“Did you kiss her good night?”
“Nope.”
“Did she try to kiss you good night?”
“Nope.”
“Did you hold her hand?”
He rolls his eyes up to me. “Do I detect a note of jealousy?”
“Maybe.”
He looks at my American Express card, which Mom had issued in my name when I started driving. She wanted to make sure I was never stranded without the means to pay for gas or a tow or whatever. Behind the American Express are a medical insurance card and one from the auto insurance company on what to do in case of an accident. I'm about to take the damn cards and fling them across the room when he gets to my driver's license.
“March twenty-eighth. You have a birthday coming up in two months.” He studies the license for a moment, then suddenly mutters, “Fuck. You're seventeen?”
I shrug.
“You told me you were eighteen,” he says, sitting up suddenly. He stuffs everything back in my wallet and reaches for his shirt.
“I rounded up.”
“Oh, you rounded up all right. Almost two months' worth.” He flings my clothes at me. “Get dressed.”
I gather up my shirt and jeans, but I don't get dressed. “It's no big deal.”
“It
is
a big deal. It is a
huge
fucking deal. Oh
shhhit
. You shouldn't
be
here. I shouldn't be here
with
you. Seventeen? Oh, God. Get your clothes on. This did not happen.” He yanks on his jeans, then his shirt. His hands tremble as he struggles with the buttons, and I'm reminded of the way they trembled when he really touched me for the first time.
But this hurts to watch. I get to my feet to help with the buttons, hoping to calm him down some, but he twists away and backs up, throwing up his hands as if to show he is not touching me. The move stings. He turns away and shoves his feet into his loafers by the door.
“I'm seventeen. So the fuck what? I'm still the age of consent. And I consent. Believe me. I totally, with everything I am, consent.”
“Do you not understand?” he says, rounding on me. “I just committed a crime. I could lose my job. I could lose my career. I could lose my daughter. You can't even
vote.
”
“It's not even an election year,” I say quietly.
He zips up his jeans but doesn't bother to button them, then grabs his keys off the table. “Lock the door behind you, okay?”
“You're just gonna walk out? Just like that? Pretend like this never happened?”
He stops and screws up his face, then bangs his head on the door. He's gripping his keys so tightly that his knuckles have gone white. “This didn't happen. You got that?” Then he slips out without another word.
Chapter 23
Andrew
Â
I wasn't thinking with my dick. I wasn't thinking with my dick. I wasn't thinking with my dick. Goddammit. I slam the heel of my hand into the steering wheel.
I was thinking with my heart.
A horn blares, and I realize I've just run a stop sign. I'm driving too fast. I ease off the accelerator. The last thing I need is to get pulled over minutes after committing a felony.
Seventeen. Ah,
fuck
. I slam the steering wheel again. I had this all figured out. PG-13. PG-13. PG-
fucking
-13. I made the rules; it took me barely twenty-four hours to break them. How did I let that happen?
I keep asking myself that question as I speed through the dark streets. Still driving too fast. I back off the accelerator again.
The truth is, I already had one foot over that line when I got back to my apartment. I know that now. Was it seeing Robert ignore me in class? Was I trying to prove to myself that he really wanted me, that I wasn't some old-fart teacher with worn-out soles on my shoes and stains on my pants?
And he brought me flowers. How was I supposed to resist a beautiful guy who brought me flowers, a beautiful guy who just needed to be touched?
Because he's not just a beautiful guy, asshole. He's a student. Your student. And that's a sacred trust you do not violate no matter what he says, no matter what he needs. No matter how he feels about you, or how you feel about him. You do not violate that trust.
Panic rises in me again. I can salvage this. It will never,
never,
happen again. But can I trust Robert to keep his mouth shut? He's a fucking kid. And he has every reason in the world to be pissed right now. And if he goes shooting off his mouth, I am fucked.
I don't even know I'm headed there until I pull up in front of Maya's house. It's dark, but I need to talk to someone. Who better than my best friend in the world? The one who knows me better than I know myself.
I call before I get out of the car so I don't scare her to death knocking. A lamp flips on in the house. I'm waiting outside the door when she opens it.
“Hey, Drew,” she says sleepily. She brushes her hair back from her face and studies me. “Are you okay? What are you doing here? It's almost midnight.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
She steps aside and I make my way to the small family room. Even in the dark I could find my way around the house. It's just as it was when I moved out. There are new throw pillows on the couch, and the rug is new, but otherwise not much has changed. I drop onto the couch and stretch out on my back. “Is Kiki asleep?”
“Uh-huh.” She picks up my feet and settles on the opposite end of the couch, then pulls my feet back into her lap like she used to do when we were married, and before. It's comfortable, and safe. “She's got that Dalmatian gripped so tightly around the neck he'd be one dead dog if he'd ever been a live dog.”
“He's a she.”
“He's a cross-dresser. Kiki insists he's a boy dog.”
I smile. “Did she have a good day at Ms. Smith's Village?”
“It was okay, I think. She's having a harder time lately. I think the two-year-old room is a little rough. There's a lot of sparring over the Chatter Telephone and the Corn Popper. But she'll be all right. I have a feeling you didn't stop by to ask about Kiki's day, though.”
She stretches out her legs on the couch, too, and we trade off foot rubs just like old times.
“If anything happened to me, you and Kiki would be okay, right?”
She gives me a puzzled look. “That's kind of out there. Did something happen?”
“I'm just asking. You know, if something did happen to me, you'd have Doug. You'd get married. Kiki would grow up with a dad. He's financially stable. He could give her everything. Send her to college.”
“Okay, first of all, you're being a little weird. And second, I don't know if Doug and I are really headed that way. He's kind of . . . a work in progress. I'm not so sure I want to be the one to civilize him.”
I snort a laugh. “A work in progress?”
“Yeah.” She wrinkles her nose. “This is just between you and me, right?”
I don't even have to answer that question. We've always been each other's confidante. She trusts me; I trust her.
“Okay,” she says. “He wears this scented deodorant that makes my eyes burn. And he sleeps in his socks.”
“Okay, so buy him some unscented deodorant and tell him to take off his damn socks.”
“And he likes to wear these white Fruit of the Loom briefs like he's four or something.”
I smile at her across the expanse of the couch. I love this girl. I always have. “Come on, Maya. Aren't you being a little hard on the guy? Buy him some sexy underwear.”
“Why are we talking about this anyway?” Maya says, then suddenly she becomes alarmed. “Oh my God, are you sick, Drew? Is something wrong?”
“No. I'm not sick.”
She relaxes. “Then why are we talking about
what ifs
. Something's going on.”
“I'm just wondering.” My cell phone signals a message, the third since I got here. I take a quick look at the number.
“Is that your friend?” Maya asks.
“No. Some gibberish. I've been getting a lot of it. I think someone spammed my phone number.”
“Here,” she says, reaching for the phone, “I'll block the number for you.”
I slip the phone back in my pocket. “I can do it later. So tell me what else about Doug drives you crazy?”
“I don't want to talk about Doug anymore. I want to talk about you. Are you having some kind of breakdown, some kind of midlife crisis at twenty-four?”
I smile. “No.”
“Does this have something to do with your new boyfriend?”
“No new boyfriend. It just didn't work out.” The fact of this statement hurts.
“I'm sorry,” she says gently. “You know, this is the first guy you've been interested in since Kevin.”
I don't want to talk about Kevin. The very mention of his name makes my skin crawl. But she's right. There hasn't been anyone since my college freshman crush five long years ago. I can tell from the way she's looking at me that she still believes Kevin broke my heart. I've never told her that he'd done much worse than that. He'd taken my innocence, and then he'd broken me. And now I've broken Robert.
“Have you ever thought about moving back, Drew?”
Her question comes out of nowhere and leaves me unbalanced. My first thought is no. We've been down this road before. It didn't work then; why would we think it could work now?
She retrieves her feet and sits up, folding her legs under her. “We could do this. Kiki misses her dad. I miss my best friend. You could save that rent on the apartment. You could buy a better car.” She's talking fast now, animated, like she's been thinking about this for some time. “Your room is just like you left it.”
My room. Her room. Kiki's room. A place for everyone, and everyone in their place. “We tried this before, Maya. It didn't work out so great. You want something I can't give you.”
She laughs a little, then props her elbow on the back of the couch and cradles her cheek in her hand, her expression pensive. “You know, I've been getting that for a while now, and I've decided it's a little overrated.”
No, it's not overrated. And maybe that's the reason I'm already clutching at the offer, letting it reel me in to safer waters.
She's still talking, working out the details as she goes. “It's not like we're going to get married again. And you can still have your own life. You can still date. Go dancing. Bring a guy over for dinner.” She smiles and reaches for my hand. “And I can still have my life too.”
She says the last like she's just throwing it out there to seal the deal. I pretend like she means it.
“Come on, when does your lease expire?” she asks.
And suddenly I'm in tenth grade again, running for cover behind Maya's American Eagle jeans and Aéropostale T-shirts. And I can't believe I'm actually considering her offer. Or is it really a lifeline?
“I'm on a month-to-month. I just have to give them thirty days' notice.” I can't believe that I'm actually saying this, that I'm actually thinking about doing this.
“Then what's stopping you?”
Nothing at all.
“If I can get a U-Haul, I can move back in tomorrow.”
She jumps up and does a little happy dance right in the middle of the living room floor. “I'll get your room ready.”
“Are you sure about this, Maya?”
But what I'm really asking is,
Am I sure about this?
Â
Robert
Â
“How was your date?” Mom asks.
She's laying a clear plastic liner on the bottom shelf of a cabinet above the counter. A quick survey of the kitchen confirms what I suspectâshe's continuing the systematic undoing of every improvement made to our house in the last year, including those made in the last few weeks.
I shrug.
Even though the cabinet held coffee and filters and mugs just this morning, I know it as the glass cabinet. Mom takes the glasses from me one by one, and places them on the shelf. Each time she turns to me for another glass, I feel the scrutiny, and I'm aware of my rumpled clothes.
She's asked me the sex question before, and I've truthfully denied it, but there's always a first time, right? Maybe she can see it on my face. Maybe she smells it on my shirt despite the cotton barrier of my hoodie. Maybe there's something in my eyes that screams
broken in
.
“Are you okay?”
I nod and fix my eyes on the shelf above, trying to remember what used to be there. Plates. They're stacked next to the sink. I retrieve as many as I can carry.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, taking the plates from me.
“Can I say no?”
“Yeah. You can say no.” She pretends to straighten the plates, which are already nestled into each other in a perfect stack. “Can I say I'm a little surprised? I didn't think you liked Nic that much.”
Tears prick at my eyes. “What next?”
She points to a matching set of bowls. “I'm really sorry, Robert, that . . . you know . . . that I never had the talk with you.”
“It's okay.”
“I don't suppose your dad did either?”
“I know everything I need to know, Mom, okay?”
I finger the paper flowers that Nic's mom dropped off yesterday morning before the funeral, along with a pan of tamales. Nic didn't come. He told me he wouldn't. I wonder how long it took him and Krystal to make the flowers and what kind of grade he got on
this
project. God, when did I become so cynical? Maybe the gesture was sincere. Maybe I should be more appreciative of the effort. But I just can't muster it. Nic doesn't really care about me. Nic cares about himself. And I can't help but believe that the flowers are more about how great he is than anything resembling sympathy for me or my family. It's funny that the only flowers in our house that mark Dad's death are fake flowers.
“How long have you had an iTunes account?” I ask, scanning down the list of songs on her computer. I turn up the volume a little.
Mom smiles and steps down from the three-step ladder she's been using to reach the higher shelves. “About, um”âshe glances at the time on the microwaveâ“fifty-two minutes.”
It looks like she downloaded the top forty. I doubt she's even heard of the artists. She's moving on.
“Robert, we haven't really talked about your dad. Do you want to . . . ?”
No. I don't.
Â
I change into a fresh T-shirt before getting in bed, but I keep the one I wore to Andrew's, the one he mopped my stomach with, next to me on the pillow.
I can't help texting him, even though I know it's a one-way conversation:
You had my heart inside your hand.
I wonder where you are tonight.
I've never called Andrew, but by two
AM
and after dozens of texts, I can no longer help myself. But I think even as I retrieve his number and press Call, I know.
The cell customer you are trying to reach is not available.