I was late to
practice on Monday. When I rounded the corner to my locker I saw her, standing
by my locker. She was in a yellow skirt printed with fun flowers. She smiled big and I
felt a stirring. We wandered back to the terrace, but a couple groups of kids
were smoking cigarettes and some other stuff. Miss Farr says you’ve got to be
stupid to risk expulsion by having drugs on school property, and that your
education is worth more than looking cool or getting high. I never even thought
about it, since my dad would kill me if I got caught smoking weed on school
grounds. Some kids still do it. Even Central has idiots.
I’d given myself a
lot of pep talks about having the balls to make the first move, so when we got
outside I took her hand in mine. I was kind of figuring she’d slap it away, but
she held hands back, and ran her fingernails along the inside of my fingers. I
was surprised how good it felt. I led her to the South Lawn. She told me about
her day, complained that nobody she liked had her lunch. I told her I sat with
Mike, but I was thinking about joining the soccer players.
“Why leave Mike?”
“He really hates
soccer.”
“You’re not just a
soccer player, are you?”
“What do you
mean?”
“Alex said you’re
a big nerd.”
“What?” I was
stalling while I figured out the way to answer this.
“She says you and
Mike are really into Hamlet and you always talk the most in class.”
I shrugged. “I like
it. Yeah, I guess that makes me a nerd.”
She said, “It’s
okay. I’m a nerd too. Just don’t tell anyone.”
By then we’d
walked under the spreading boughs of an oak tree, its green leaves tinged with
copper. It felt like we were alone. She turned to me and leaned in and kissed
me. I responded with the best imitation of the movies I had. This included
throwing my arms around her and mashing my face into hers. She pulled away
after a second.
“Doogie?”
“What?”
“Relax. Slow down.
It’s more fun if you’re gentle.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I
felt kind of dumb.
She had her arms
around me, and she pecked the corner of my lips, right where the lower and
upper lip meet. She said, “First kiss?”
I looked around. I
was a nerd; I’d never kissed a girl. She knew too much, too fast.
She laughed. “That’s
good. I get to teach you.”
More kisses. This
time I tried to go slow and follow her lead. I liked it a lot. Being super-powered
was an awesome feeling. When I went on those runs out the R8 tracks, my feet
drumming the railroad ties, throwing wind-wounding punches, I was strong
against the world, and that made me feel alive. This was different, the
beginning of a togetherness that was just as vibrant, but calming in this deep
and sexy way. She said, “I like kissing you.”
“Thanks.”
Time passed
Later she said, “The
team is running laps.”
I looked over and
saw practice had started. I kissed her one last time, and took off down the
hill. I shouted, “See you tomorrow.”
“Call me,” she
yelled.
The next day I
stopped by the soccer table, where Aiden was. He congratulated me on making out
with Jean. The other guys said similar things. It was fun to be there but
eventually I peeled off and made for our corner table, where Mike was working a
lunchroom hoagie like it was his first meal in forty days.
He said, “You see
these Primo Grand commercials?”
“Yeah.”
“They
freak me out.”
“Why?”
“All
the kids in the commercials, they have this weird look. They look mindless.”
Mike
could be weird himself, “That’s just commercials, man. Don’t be crazy.”
“No,
watch them when you go home. It’s like Barbie heads or something. A nonstop
smile, almost plastic, and nothing behind it.”
“Why
do you think they all look like that?”
“I
don’t know. Something is going on at that mall. There is something rotten in
the city of Philadelphia, and it’s Primo’s Grand. That place is up to no good,
trust me. We should go investigate it.”
He could be such a
dork. I pictured us with magnifying glasses and notebooks, wandering through a
mall full of kids who were cool and attractive, like Encyclopedia Brown
apprentices. I couldn’t get my head around that idea.
“You serious?”
“Yeah, let’s do
it.”
“I don’t know,
man. I’m kind of busy. Looks like I got a girlfriend!”
“Fine,
I’ll investigate myself.”
“Alright,
just don’t get spotted by the evil Primo.”
“I’m
serious.” While he spoke, his square fingers ground his hoody into the glass.
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