Kissing in America Read online

  Annie and Grace were in Grace’s queen bed. Their giggles floated down the hall.

  My friendship with Annie had always felt solid and permanent, but now I could see all its holes—in just two years Annie would go to MIT. Grace would probably go there, too. Annie would have her new school and her summer internships and I’d be at Queens College, living at home. In two years it would never be the same with us again.

  What did I have that was solid? That was real?

  I listened to Will’s mix for a while, and then I took out his letters and poems and touched the paper and ink. I couldn’t shake this tiny seed of doubt in me—what if it wasn’t real with Will? What if when I got there, he didn’t feel the same as I did? What if it didn’t feel the same?

  Women always had these worries in romance novels, I told myself. They never felt secure until the last chapter.

  I checked the clock. Grace and Annie laughed again. We had another whole day in Tennessee—when we’d planned the trip, we’d thought an extra day here would be fun.

  I missed Annie. I wanted to talk to her and tell her everything.

  I picked up my phone. No emails, no messages, except from my mom. I checked the message board. No news. Just the usual stream of old grief. I stared at my phone’s screen as it blackened and went to sleep. I saw my face reflected in the blackness and felt so lonely all of a sudden.

  I turned it back on and listened to my mom’s voice mails. Just checking in. Glad Janet’s there but I’d still love to talk to you. Call me. Please call. Call soon.

  I dialed home; she answered on the first ring. It was the first time we’d spoken since I’d left, though I’d texted her dozens of times and sent her photos of the views out the bus window. (Looks kind of nice! she’d said.) This was only our second night away, but it already felt like I’d been gone for ages.

  We talked about the weather, and a new Indian restaurant that opened down the block, and if Janet had reminded me to put on sunscreen, because windows didn’t block the full spectrum of UV radiation, and whether I was wearing my whistle. I said I was, I was, I was.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “You don’t sound right.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “It’s not too late to come back, if you want. You’re not that far away.”

  “I’m fine,” I repeated.

  “I’m serious. Call anytime day or night and I’ll get you.” Her voice cracked a little.

  “Mom. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  She sounded strange. Was she just worried? “I’m totally being safe and careful,” I assured her. “And Janet’s here. You don’t have to worry.”

  She was quiet. “I just miss you,” she murmured. Her voice was hoarse, unnatural.

  We said good-bye, and then I began to worry.

  What was she eating while I was gone? Was she back to takeout containers and breakfasts of yogurt eaten standing in front of the fridge? Larry never cooked—he’d eat hot dogs three times a day if he could. I’d given her my Fresh Direct password. Had she already forgotten it? Who was making her omelets on the weekends? What if she forgot to double-lock the apartment door? One time she left her keys in the lock all night; I found them in the morning when I left for school.

  I fingered my horseshoe necklace, feeling the angled edges of its tiny stone.

  Sometimes when she was out late and I was alone in the apartment, listening to the rain drum on the window ledge, I’d wonder what it would be like to have it happen all over again.

  It could happen so simply, just another phone call, my phone vibrating on my lap, Hi, hello, I’m so sorry but I have some terrible news.

  A car accident. A mugging. Just last week a man had been killed two blocks from our apartment, struck by a car when it careened onto the sidewalk.

  When you picture tragedies happening, it’s always like a Technicolor movie, everything too bright, glaring, loud, with screams and a thumping soundtrack. In real life it’s nothing like that. When the bad news comes, it’s so flat and regular and dull, the world so noiseless, so everyday, piercing you with its normalcy. My mom heard about my dad from my aunt first, who’d seen the crash reported on TV and knew my dad was flying that night. My mom had wordlessly stood up and picked up her date book with my dad’s flight information inside it. She walked into her bedroom and calmly called the airline. They wouldn’t give her a concrete answer until they could confirm the passenger list. She came back to me on the couch, and she didn’t tell me what was happening, she didn’t want me to know, she watched TV with me and she held me tight and I didn’t know why until the morning. How quiet everything was, my bedspread the same muted shade of pink, a sunny morning in New York, just like any other morning. What the movies don’t tell you is that the glaring colors and thundering music are only inside you.

  To touch him again in this life

  I can’t believe I have you the whole day!” Grace said to Annie over breakfast on the porch of the University Café the next morning. Nick sat beside us; he guzzled his iced coffee with a loud slurp. Janet had gone to Nashville to meet with a client, but Grace’s parents assured her they’d keep track of us. Which apparently meant letting Grace do whatever she wanted.

  I’d hoped we’d go to the Grand Ole Opry, and showed Grace the travel pages we’d printed out, but she rolled her eyes and said she had much better plans for us.

  Now Nick and Grace stepped outside to smoke a cigarette while Annie was in the café’s bathroom. Grace had told us she was trying to quit, but that didn’t seem to be working so well. I watched them. Nick’s tentacles entangled her like ivy, going places where no tentacles should go.

  They returned to the table, and Grace’s red nails disemboweled her cinnamon bun. “I hope you brought your bathing suits.” She grinned.

  We hadn’t. Grace lent a beige one-piece to me. She was about five inches taller than me so it sagged everywhere, especially in the butt and the boobs, and she gave me flip-flops that were two sizes too big. I looked like I was wearing a grocery bag and a pair of flippers. She’d lent Annie a black bikini that fit perfectly.

  At the local quarry the water was a fairy-tale blue. Annie and I couldn’t swim, and Grace had only one kickboard. “You go first,” Annie said, handing the kickboard to me.

  “That’s okay.” I shook my head. “I’d rather sit on the shore and read for a while.”

  I wrapped a towel around myself, hiding my body in the grocery bag. I held up the book I’d bought at Lammy’s SpeedyMart: American Amour. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got this.” I turned to my dog-eared page in the middle.

  While I sat on the rocks and read, Annie and Grace swam and Nick splashed them, making giant whoops. I ate an egg salad sandwich that Mrs. Young had packed for us, with eggs from her neighbors’ chickens and dill from her garden. It was one of the best sandwiches I’d ever eaten, and I felt happy to be alone, reading, with thoughts of Will casting a brightness over everything, like the sun. There hadn’t been a letter from him in Tennessee, but the doubts I’d had about him last night disappeared this morning.

  Will put down his bowl of mutton stew. “Eva, never doubt my love for you,” he told her. “It is as strong as my belief that we will become an independent nation.” He finished the last bite of her johnnycake and carried her to the hayloft.

  Eventually, Annie, Grace, and Nick came back onshore to eat lunch and dry off. Grace blotted her hair with a towel and glared at my book’s cover. “Can you please put your man titty away? It’s giving me a headache.”

  American Amour had a particularly bad cover: pink foil lettering and a long-haired, bare-chested, glistening leviathan on a horse. His nipples were the size of dessert plates.

  “I can’t believe you read that crap,” Grace said.

  “It’s not crap,” I said.

  “Grace,” Annie warned her. “Come on.”

  Grace shrugged. “Sorry. I just never liked that stuff. I always thought it’s no
t . . . decent.”

  I didn’t know how having your boyfriend’s octopus tentacles up your hoo-hoo in public was considered decent either, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to have a confrontation. We were leaving tomorrow, I reminded myself. I could endure Grace for one day. (And then maybe murder her when we got to California.)

  They finished eating and drying off, and we packed up our things; we took turns changing out of our bathing suits behind a rock. We climbed back into Grace’s car, and Nick drove us down rural back roads.

  A small plane flew overhead. Whenever I heard one, I did this thing where I pretended it wasn’t happening; I didn’t listen; I focused on a country music song on the radio and shut the world out until it passed.

  We drove by an open field, and Grace touched Nick’s arm and whispered to him. They turned a corner, and we drove for several miles until we reached a fence.

  “Nick’s brother works here,” Grace said. Nick drove us past the gate. There they were, in the distance: tiny brightly colored planes, lined up like toys, with a larger prop plane behind them.

  A giant sign read:

  MEYER’S SOARING—

  THREE GLIDER RIDES, GET ONE FREE.

  Cold seeped into my chest. I couldn’t move.

  “Ed started the business last summer,” Nick told us.

  “We can go for free!” Grace trilled.

  Ed stepped out of a wooden booth and greeted us. He had a mustache so thick, it looked like a mouse was napping on his lips.

  “Y’all ready to glide?” Ed asked. He placed his hands on his hips.

  Annie searched my face. She pulled Grace aside and they talked for a while. I watched Annie fold her arms and stare at the dirt.

  Annie returned to me and said, “We’re not doing this. We’re going to go right home—”

  “What did you tell her?” I asked.

  “I didn’t say anything about your dad. I said you have a phobia.” She shook her head. “She doesn’t get it.”

  Grace came over to us. “A lot of people use glider rides as a way to get over their fear of flying,” she said. “Ed and Nick take tons of people out like that, and you wouldn’t believe how much it helps them. They’ve cured them all.”

  I didn’t look at her. I was afraid if I did, I’d fall apart.

  She walked back to Nick and Ed, whispered something to them, and shrugged. That girl is so high-maintenance, she probably said. She’s bringing everybody down. She won’t let Annie have any fun.

  Grace was the easier friend. She required less. Annie would rather take this trip with her.

  “No, it’s fine,” I told Annie. “I’ll just wait. I’m right in the middle of my book, at a great part. . . . I’ll stay here and read. You should go.”

  “No. I’m not going,” Annie said.

  “I’m serious. Really—you should go.”

  She searched my face again, trying to see if I was lying.

  I didn’t want her to go. My insides screamed, Don’t do it—you could die! But I couldn’t say that. Grace already hated me and thought I was a crazy person. If I said how I really felt, Grace would laugh. Everyone would laugh.

  “She’s waiting for you.” I nodded at Grace, who was leaning against the booth, talking to Nick and Ed, looking impatient.

  “You ladies flying or not?” Ed called to us.

  Annie glanced at me one more time.

  “Go.” I nudged her toward them. Then I turned and walked toward Grace’s car.

  Annie looked back at me; Grace touched her arm and hurried her toward the glider.

  I stood by the car alone. I should’ve said the truth. I should’ve said: You’re going to fly in a plane that looks like a toy, without a motor? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?

  It was crazy. Grace was going to kill my best friend. And I was going to stand there and watch it. Why didn’t I have the guts to say the truth?

  They were in the glider already, with Ed in the leader plane. He kept checking his phone. He was probably Googling how to fly a plane. He looked like he hadn’t washed his hands or brushed his teeth in years—I wouldn’t trust him to fly a plane in a video game.

  The motor started. Words caught in my throat: Don’t do it. Don’t—

  They took off.

  I couldn’t watch. To the left of me, a forest surrounded the field. I looked toward the car, but I couldn’t sit and read. I had all this excess nervous energy. I needed to move. I turned and started running. Why had I said she should go? I was such a lying idiot. What was wrong with me?

  I ran. Pine trees. Their needles covered the ground, a brown carpet winding around the evergreens.

  I stopped and leaned against a tree, panting. I heard the motor rumbling, and I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, but I couldn’t—my skin started to lift off me as the sky shook. I pinched my thumbnail, watching it turn white.

  I slumped down. Any new hurt dug up the old ones, unburied them. After my dad died, one of our neighbors shoved a card under our door in an orange envelope. Three kittens sleeping on a clock. It said: Time heals all.

  Aside from making a line of funny sympathy cards, someday I want to make ones that just tell the truth:

  Sorry to hear he died.

  Now you’re going to feel miserable forever, pretty much.

  GL with that!

  I turned on my phone. I had service.

  I checked the message board.

  There were eighty-two new ones. Fran wrote the first. It was a link to a newspaper article. From this morning.

  Bodies in Airplane Crash Are Recovered

  from Ocean Floor

  By HUMPHREY COLES

  A recovery team removed the remains of four victims from the wreckage of Freedom Airlines Flight 472, which crashed in the Atlantic two years ago, from a section of the fuselage that had been wedged in the ocean floor.

  The bodies were brought to the surface from a depth of approximately a mile and a half, Frank Longbrown, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said. The remains will be rushed to a laboratory in New York, where an attempt will be made to identify the victims within two weeks. The genders of the victims were not yet certain.

  Longbrown raised the possibility that more bodies might still be recovered. He said “much is unknown” about how many victims remain in the wreckage of the jet on the ocean floor. “The retrieval process is in an exploratory stage,” he said.

  In the cold climate of the sea bottom, Longbrown said, the bodies may be intact but delicate.

  The canopy of trees above me was so thick, I could barely see the sky. I was shivering. Freezing.

  I ran. I kept running until I didn’t feel my feet anymore.

  Don’t fall apart. Don’t fall apart. Don’t fall apart.

  It didn’t change anything. First the wreckage. Then the flight recorders. Now they’d found bodies. It didn’t matter. He was dead. So what if they finally found the rest of his body? So what so what so what so what so what so what?

  It mattered. It mattered more than anything in the whole entire world.

  It mattered because I cared what he felt, whether he spent those last seconds screaming. It mattered because I didn’t want the Greek myths to be true, to think that like the dead warriors in Hades, he was trapped forever with his body smashed beyond recognition. Or strapped into his seat. Forever.

  I kept running through the forest, pounding the questions and fear into the ground, trying to shut the feelings off, close them down. I ran until I could barely breathe. Then I stood still and steeled myself. I did this literally, as I felt my insides crumbling—I pictured steel girding my body, pylons up my ribs, along my arms, bracing me, holding me up, metal around me.

  I reached the airfield.

  Landings

  They landed safely.

  Grace said, “That was so much fun!”

  Annie bit her lip, and I could feel her eyes on me, but I knew if I said anything, the slightest peep, the steel would collapse, dissolve i
n front of all of them.

  “Nick and Grace want to have another ride,” Annie told me.

  I nodded. I watched Grace and Nick get back into the glider.

  Annie brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry Grace is such a . . .”

  She left the phrase hanging there. “She’s just jealous of you,” she finally said.

  “What?”

  She gazed at her feet. “Because we’re doing this. Having this trip she’s not a part of.”

  Then she moved closer to me, grasped my hand. “You’ll always be my best friend,” she told me as we walked back to the car.

  We never said that to each other anymore. We used to say it all the time, in fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth grades, constantly, You’re my best friend, and then for some reason we’d stopped. I guess because we felt we’d gotten too old for saying those kinds of things, too mature to need the reminder.

  I squeezed her hand back.

  Nick drove us back to Grace’s house quickly, and after he parked the car, Annie and I hung behind in the garden. Grace and Nick disappeared inside.

  I showed Annie the article once they were out of sight. I watched her read it on my phone, the corners of her mouth turning downward.

  Hold it together. Stay calm. Try not to be so thin-skinned.

  “‘Much is unknown.’ Who writes this shit? Who says this shit? I’d like to shove his ‘unknown’ up his goddamn ‘exploratory stage,’” she said.

  I laughed. We both laughed. The sun hid behind the late- afternoon clouds.

  She hugged me. “It will be okay. Whatever they find. I know it will be okay.”

  I tried to believe her. It would be so wonderful to believe her. I felt like two different people again, the one standing here with my best friend and the other girl who had a black hole growing in her chest, hollowing out her stomach, sucking away everything good.