Kissing in America Read online

Janet shrugged. “Your mom took it hard when our dad died, and then our mom. She didn’t know how to cope.”

  She still doesn’t know how to cope, I thought.

  We put more stones on top of their graves. I put stones on other people’s graves, too. It didn’t seem right that no one had visited them. I thought of my father’s grave back east, neglected, no stones having been placed on it for almost two years, no one to plant flowers or pluck the weeds.

  I understood why Janet wanted the graves, wanted a place to visit. I wished that I had a place to go to, somewhere to remember my dad instead of just a pillowcase in my backpack, and a faraway cemetery that held bad memories. On the message boards, people had talked about plans for a memorial somewhere in New York, but that seemed years away from ever happening.

  I felt a warmth toward Janet that I’d never felt before—maybe she wasn’t all prickly comments and awkward phone messages. Maybe we weren’t so different after all. We both shared that yearning to be with the dead again.

  Love and other diseases

  After the cemetery, our trip took a cheerier turn—Janet agreed to a quick stop to see the swamp monkeys at the zoo before it closed, and even let us go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for a half hour. Annie and I locked arms as we stopped for dinner at Gittel’s, Janet’s favorite restaurant. It was a deli just like the ones in New York, except it was a lot cleaner. Annie ordered a pastrami sandwich. I got an egg cream, which they called a chocolate phosphate, and blueberry blintzes and matzo ball soup—and while we ate, I kept staring at the orange booth across from us.

  A blond girl and a boy in a baseball cap sat there, nestled together. They shared a milkshake, and the boy kept feeding the girl French fries. Her knee bobbed up and down, and the boy put his hand there, steadying it.

  The boy grasped the girl’s fingers and held them tightly. He kissed them. Then he kissed her on the mouth. Hungrily. With an ardent throbbing need, you could say.

  His hand went up her shirt. Janet glared at them. All the openness she’d shown as we’d stood in the cemetery and toured the city drained away. A switch turned on, and she was Aunt Gonorrhea again.

  Janet’s eyes drilled into the couple. “Disgusting,” she said too loudly. “Boys.”

  I clutched my napkin. Whenever the subject of boys came up, Janet usually said the same thing, how she thought all my mother’s feminist theories could be summed up in three words: Men are beasts.

  According to my mom, when Janet was twenty-eight, her fiancé, Sam Katz, dumped her the night before their wedding. Sam had gotten his dental hygienist, Binnie Burkowitz, pregnant. Janet got a partial refund on the reception hall and the caterer, and she returned the gifts. The dress was not returnable. It had been shredded and sent to Sam in a cardboard box.

  Now Janet skewered a pickled red pepper. “They only want one thing. Girls can’t get it through their heads that boys have one mission: to fornicate and impregnate.”

  I turned around. I hoped that the sweet-looking white-haired lady at the next table hadn’t heard us. Annie was suddenly absorbed in her sandwich.

  Janet picked up her fork and knife and dispatched her meat loaf. “Men—and boys—are animals.”

  Annie wiped her lips with her napkin. “Well, I agree we’re driven by biology. Humans are mammals. And only three percent of mammals are monogamous. Males have evolved to spread their genetic material around as far and wide as possible. Even animals who mate for life, like gibbons, swans, and foxes, still have outside couplings.”

  “Exactly. Beasts,” Janet said. “I hear all the time about what teens your age are reading on the internet, and how you’re ‘sexting’ and sharing pornographic photos.” She touched the sugar packets. “You girls are too young to realize that boys will tell you anything to take advantage of you.”

  I tried to think of a new subject—how to distract her? Could we talk about nice pretty cemeteries instead?

  She gazed at me with her most intense glasses-on-a-stalk-of-broccoli stare, then took a deep breath. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

  She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a letter. She put her glasses back on and adjusted them on her nose. “This arrived at my house this morning.”

  Long white envelope, neat black script. Will.

  A letter from Will with the top ripped open. My stomach fell.

  She handed it to me. I looked inside and pulled out the poem—a short one, half a page.

  E—I thought you’d love this.

  It was by Emily Dickinson.

  I measure every grief I meet.

  “Who’s this from?” Janet asked me.

  “Why did you open my mail?” I gaped at her.

  “Why did he send you that? I found it very cryptic.”

  “It’s a poem. Just a poem.” I couldn’t believe she’d opened it. Even my mom respected federal privacy laws and never opened anything addressed to me.

  Janet’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s Will Freeman?”

  I thought fast. “We edit our high school literary journal together. That’s all. He’s sending poems that we’re going to include in the next issue. Every issue highlights famous poems.”

  “Why did he need to send it here?”

  “Because Mrs. Peech, our faculty adviser, asked us to work on it over the summer. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Mrs. Peech. She won’t believe that you opened it.”

  I hoped she wouldn’t try to contact Mrs. Peech.

  “The postmark is from Los Angeles. Are you going to see this person while you’re there?”

  “No,” I said. “Why would I?”

  Her eyes looked huge behind her glasses. “It’s not that I’m against young people exploring a dating type of relationship. It’s that I believe they should be well educated about the dangers of these situations, and of course be supervised. And I don’t believe that privacy should exist among young people anymore. Not in this day and age. Not with the internet.”

  “Some people my age barely even use the internet,” I said. Well, one person. One person in the world. And I had to fall in love with him.

  She fingered a button on her green shirt. “You know, I get paid to discuss these issues with teens. It’s part of my job. I expanded my business last year to include workshops with private schools. I teach about safer driving, and my Lifestyle Choices presentation was recently featured in Cleveland Parent magazine.”

  “I’m sure it’s a great presentation,” Annie said politely. She probably thought that would pacify Janet and make the normal side of her return. Little did she know.

  Out came the iPad from Janet’s bag. She placed it on the table between us and opened up PowerPoint. “I’ll just show you the beginning,” she said. “Though it’s much more effective on a large screen.”

  “LIFESTYLE CHOICES” flashed in red block letters on the tablet. Janet swiped through the pictures—a stock photo of two teenagers holding hands while strolling down a sidewalk, then one of a girl, alone, silhouetted in darkness.

  “Unfortunately, teenagers often make decisions without thinking of the consequences,” Janet told us. The screen read: “ONE IN FOUR TEENS IS DIAGNOSED WITH AN STD EACH YEAR.”

  The next photo: Lesions. Crusting sores and yellowy blisters around a girl’s lips.

  I put down my fork.

  Annie’s mouth dropped open.

  “Herpes on the face,” Janet said. “Most teenagers believe oral activity is completely safe. They’re mistaken.”

  The oozing blisters trailed across the poor girl’s cheeks, toward her nose.

  Next: A crusty rash engulfed a man’s cheeks like barnacles roosting on the skin.

  “Syphilis on the face,” she said.

  Then another girl, her brown hair tied back in a ponytail, one eye red as blood.

  “Gonorrhea on the eyeball.”

  I shook my head. I knew we’d be hearing about gonorrhea.

  On Janet went, photo after photo, sore after sore, some on hairy are
as that I hoped I’d never be asked to identify.

  She gleefully shut the iPad off. “That’s just a sample. Hopefully on our next visit I can show you the whole thing.”

  There was more?

  “I want to protect you,” Janet said. “I feel it’s my responsibility as an adult to help you avoid making big mistakes. I want you to be safe.” She separated the sugar and artificial sweetener packets, making sure all were right side up.

  Annie and I were speechless.

  The waitress stopped by our table. “Would you like dessert?”

  We said, “No thank you.”

  “I have pie in the freezer at home,” Janet said brightly.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to Annie as we walked to the car. “I didn’t know she’d gone this wacko.”

  Annie’s mouth was still half open. “I’m staying a virgin until I die. Did you see that eyeball?”

  We drove to Janet’s house. She lived in a gated development called Castle Ridge. The entire house, inside and out, looked like it had been dipped in Clorox: white stucco, white carpet, white walls, white tables and sofa and chairs. I gave Janet the bag of bagels we’d brought for her.

  “Murray’s!” She touched the bag tenderly. “I’m going to freeze them,” she said, as if that was the highest compliment she could give to a bagel. She opened the freezer door.

  It was the biggest freezer I’d ever seen in my life. It looked as if it had eaten three other freezers. It overflowed with frozen kosher dinners and foods of every kind.

  “When you live alone, you have to freeze everything,” she explained. Her hands swam through the boxes of vegetables. She was concerned that Annie and I hadn’t eaten enough vegetables that day, so she microwaved a package of mixed corn, carrots, and peas for us. Annie and I set the white plates and napkins on the table.

  While the microwave whirred, I lingered for a long time in Janet’s living room, staring at the photos on the wall. She’d hung up a dozen framed photos of our family, pictures that I’d never seen—ones of my mom and Janet as kids, photos of Freda and Abraham, and pictures of my mom, my dad, and me.

  “I love your Snoopy dress,” Annie said as she looked at a photo of me. It had been taken when I was five years old.

  “Pretty fancy. My mom got it at a thrift shop.”

  I felt a pang of longing as I stared at a picture of my parents and me hugging, sitting on a rock in Central Park. I must’ve been only two or three in the picture. The sun shone on us, bright on our beaming faces.

  “Your mom and dad were so happy in those years,” Janet said. “You were a happy baby.”

  My mom never threw away any photo albums after my dad died—she stored them in the back of her closet—but I never asked to look at them. Now I knew why: because it hurt too much. Our family sitting in Central Park, hugging. I couldn’t believe the smiling, carefree kid in the photo was me. We had no idea what would happen to us.

  We sat down to eat.

  I stuck my fork in a rumpled pea. The food was thoroughly cooked, but everything had a slightly puckered, waterlogged feel, as if even the carrots were tired from their epic climate-shifting journey to our plate.

  I thought about Will. Seeing him would sweep away all the bad feelings. When he kissed me on the street and on the roof, his kisses removed the world for a little while. His love, and loving him, seemed like an antidote to grief.

  When I’d read about Lilith and Sage being swept away and swept off (there was always a lot of sweeping in romances), I’d always wondered what it would feel like in real life. I had no idea that the books never captured it entirely—that it felt so much better, more intense, that I felt it with my whole body—since the night with him, I didn’t crave cookies or online message boards or books in the same way I used to. I didn’t need any of the things I used to use for comfort. The thought of him had become the comfort.

  I even felt less anxious when I thought about the recovery of the wreckage. The news articles had stopped for a while—we were still awaiting analysis of what the recorders said, and whether they’d retrieve the rest of the wreckage from the ocean floor. I thought again of what Will had told me: The recorders will confirm what you already know: he wasn’t scared. Ever since he’d said that, I felt less frightened, too.

  I watched Janet inspect her fork and her plate for cleanliness and signs of contamination, and it occurred to me that Janet was afraid. She was afraid of germs and diseases and sex and heartbreak, of her broken engagement, her old messy love.

  It doesn’t have to be a mess, I wanted to say.

  It could be like me and Will.

  Easy. Because that’s how it had felt—easy to fall for him, easy to let the world fall away, to escape into dreams of him in the same way I escaped into books.

  Loving him was easy. The hard part was how to keep it that way.

  O Love, O fire

  The next morning Janet looked like a giant eggplant. She wore purple high-waisted pants and a purple button-down shirt. I didn’t know why her fashion sense was modeled on various vegetables. Maybe it was her way of expressing an inner hunger for all the fresh produce she didn’t eat.

  I’d heard her alarm go off at six, and then she’d been talking on the phone and emailing. Last night, when she’d said good night to us, she’d seemed wistful. She’d hugged me and said, “I’m so glad that you came. I wish you could visit more often.”

  This morning she seemed much more cheerful. As our waffles rattled in the toaster and she melted the orange juice concentrate, she grinned and whistled to herself.

  “I have good news,” she told us. “Your mom and I talked last night—she’s been so worried about you girls—and I said, ‘Do you know, I’m looking at my schedule and it wouldn’t be too hard to rearrange things so I could join them.’ I’ve got clients all over the country, so this is a great opportunity for me to see them. I’ve been planning it last night and this morning, and I can come with you all the way to LA. Well, I’ll miss the Arizona stop since I have six contacts to see in Texas—the Texas market is a huge one for what I do—but I can take a quick flight from Dallas to LA and meet you at the bus station there as soon as you arrive.”

  I froze. “That’s really not necessary.”

  She’d already bought the ticket. She showed us the printout from Go Blue. “The whole trip will be a tax write-off, too. I’ve got a client in LA who lets me use their condo, so we don’t have to stay in a hotel. I know your mom told me that resort is sponsoring the show and you can stay for free, but it’s probably overrun with teenagers doing god knows what. The condo will be better. Your mom was so relieved to know I’d be with you most of the way. I even thought about driving you, but I can’t take that much time off work. This way I can work while we travel. I even have an ergonomic lap desk.” She pointed to a big black square thing on the table. “I’m sorry I won’t get to see Lulu in Tucson. I always like seeing her. But you’ll be in great hands there, and I’ll get to hear all about it in LA.”

  “Fantastic,” I said. I felt a little sick. I hoped to see Will every one of the three nights we’d be in LA, and as much time during the day as possible—how could that happen if Aunt Janet was with us?

  Annie and I went back to our room to finish packing.

  “Aunt Gonorrhea. On. Our. Trip.” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “Does she know there’s no freezer on the bus?”

  “She’s going to show Will those eyeball pictures. He’ll never go near me again.”

  “She’ll probably make him swim in Purell.”

  “I’m going to shoot myself.”

  “Janet won’t stand for that. Way too messy.”

  But we didn’t seem to have a choice.

  Janet hummed cheerily on the way to the bus station—she wanted to leave her car in her garage during the trip, so we took a taxi. We left over an hour early, since she insisted on being early for everything. After a while, as the taxi sped along, I saw something out the window.


  CITY CHILI

  “Stop the car!”

  I said it without even thinking and pointed frantically at the restaurant. The driver followed my hand motions and turned into the parking lot.

  “What are we doing?” Janet looked confused, and when she realized we were stopping for chili and not emergency resuscitation, she asked, “Seriously? The meter’s running!”

  “It’s a flat fare,” I said.

  Janet muttered something under her breath that sounded like “chili-crazy teenagers,” and then stewed in silence as Annie and I headed into the restaurant.

  You could order a “Way”—a Three-Way, Four-Way, or Five-Way—steaming spaghetti covered with chili, onions, red beans, and a layer of neon cheese. I ordered a Five-Way for Annie and me to share—I figured we should go all out, when in Ohio.

  Janet looked completely disgusted. She was speechless. I got the order to go so we could eat it for lunch on the bus.

  Annie and I settled into the first-row seat, and Janet chose the empty row across from us.

  “Isn’t this lovely,” Janet said as she settled herself in her seat. She sanitized her hands and our hands, and she sprayed disinfectant on the upholstery. She clutched her purse to her chest and glared ferociously at the other passengers as they boarded, as if daring them: Just try and steal it. Nobody sat beside her.

  I checked my texts. Three new ones from my mom.

  Are you ok? I worry when I don’t hear from you.

  Janet told me you’re fine, but it would be nice to hear from you too.

  How’s it going w/Janet there? So nice of her to change her schedule and join you!

  I wrote back:

  Super nice.

  At the moment, Janet was studiously spraying a dark brown stain and blotting it with a wipe.

  It was my idea! I’m so happy she could do it.

  Yay! Thanks!

  I wanted to text my mom: I would shoot myself, but instead I’ll go poison myself because Janet would find that a nice sanitary way to die.

  I turned toward Janet, who had put her cleaning supplies away and was now typing on her laptop.