Late to the Party - Kelly Quindlen Page 0,97
I teased.
“Shut up. Don’t waste the first day of senior year, Codi, all right? Or any of it.”
“I hear you.”
“And tell Grant I said hi.”
“I will.”
We loitered by the cars after they left. JaKory walked off when he got a call from Daveon, a grin on his face before he’d even answered, and then it was just Lydia, Maritza, Vivien, and me.
“I’m staying on dance team,” Maritza told me, rolling her eyes but smiling. She gave Vivien a look.
“What?” I asked.
Vivien grinned. “I had a little chat with Rona. Apparently she’s terrified of me? Yeah, I don’t know, I’ve been told I come off as intimidating. Anyway, I told her to leave Maritza alone.”
Maritza smiled the same way JaKory was smiling these days. “Turns out dating the captain has its perks.”
“Have you told your team?” Lydia asked.
“Hell no,” Maritza said. “We’re trying to fuck with them, see how long it takes them to catch on.”
“Most likely the entire year,” Vivien said, and Maritza laughed and kissed her on the cheek, which was the most un-Maritza-ish thing I’d ever seen.
“Vivitza,” Lydia cheered under her breath, raising her fist in a victory pump, and Maritza rolled her eyes and smiled bigger than ever.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as JaKory came back over to the group. “Meet at my locker?”
“Yeah,” JaKory said hastily. “I’m bringing copies of my curated summer reading list. I laminated them and everything. Mrs. Barley’s going to hate me. But Daveon—”
“Daveon loves you,” I finished. “We know.”
“I was going to say Daveon added a couple of suggestions,” JaKory said. “But yeah, same thing.”
We split off between the cars, the other three jumping into Maritza’s—she didn’t let JaKory drive this time—and Lydia and me into hers. It was baked with heat, and for a minute we sat with the doors open and the AC blasting, coughing and wiping the sweat off our faces.
“Precious Vivitza,” Lydia said wistfully. “Reminds me of when we first met.”
“No way, we’re cuter than them,” I said, grabbing her hand.
She pretended to think about it, her face screwed up comically. “You know what?” she said, turning to me. “You’re right, we are.”
We didn’t talk on the short drive back to my house. We were that summer-sun kind of exhausted, and I was content just to sit there holding her hand. I’d held her hand for almost two hours the night before, when I’d taken her to the movies. We’d done all the classic date-night things: the popcorn, the shared soda straw, the making out in the car afterward. It had been like something out of a teen dating PSA, and as I’d lain there in the back seat of my car, making out with Lydia on top of me, I thought of how Mrs. Wexler, my seventh-grade sex ed teacher, had never been able to describe to the girls what would happen to our bodies when we were turned on. If I had known Lydia then, I wouldn’t have found the whole thing so mysterious.
The garage doors were up and both my parents’ cars were in their spaces. When we sat down to dinner tonight, they would launch into their usual start-of-the-school-year speech, emphasizing good grades, good behavior, and trying new things. I was pretty sure I’d have that last part covered.
“I hope you have the best first day,” Lydia said, idling her car in my driveway. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”
“I’ll come see you tomorrow night,” I said, kissing her goodbye. “We can go for a drive.”
We were putting off the conversation we needed to have about whether we’d keep dating, and I knew that; but in that moment, with the thrill of a new school year fresh in my stomach, I was too hopeful to be afraid. Whatever happened with Lydia and me over the coming year, I knew I’d be able to handle it, and so would she. We were braver than we’d been two months ago.
Lydia kissed me long and slow, her hand on my face, her hair still wet from the pool. I squeezed her hand and got out of the car, waving as she backed out of the driveway.
My parents were lounging in the family room, watching their favorite news program. They told me dinner would be on the table in twenty minutes. I hurried up to my room, keen on taking a hot shower, but before I could do more than shrug off my pool towel, there was a knock on my bedroom door.
Grant was standing there, looking perplexed. He crossed his arms and opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“What’s up?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
He shuffled into my room. “I didn’t mean to see, but my window looks over the driveway—”
“Oh god…” I said, rolling my head back and covering my eyes. “You and that damn window.”
“Is that the girl who was in your bed? Is she the person you took the popcorn to?”
I hesitated. This was supposed to be a big moment for my brother and me, and part of me still wasn’t ready for it.
Grant searched my expression, waiting for an explanation—not just about Lydia, but about me. I was probably never going to be ready for this conversation, but after everything that had happened between Grant and me this summer, I knew he’d earned a bit of faith.
“Yeah,” I said finally. “Her name’s Lydia.”
“And you’re dating her?” Grant asked.
I tried to keep my expression cool. “Yeah, I am.”
“Do Mom and Dad know?”
“No. Just us.”
My brother considered this. He nodded, and I knew what question was coming next.
“How did you—?”
I expected any variation of How did you know, How did you come to terms with it, How did you hide it this whole time, but I guess that goes to show that I still had a lot to learn about my brother, because the question that came out was “How did you know she liked you?”
I blinked. “What?”
“What if—you know, what if you can’t tell if a girl likes you?”
He asked it cavalierly, his eyes on my wallpaper like it didn’t matter—but I remembered that night at the movies, and the skinny girl he’d nearly kissed.
“She does like you,” I said.
“What?”
“The girl from the movie theater, with the long brown hair and the braces, right? She likes you, I could tell.”
My brother blushed. The corners of his mouth twitched. “Uh, actually … I’m talking about a different girl. I met her at orientation on Thursday, and Darin and Ryan and I hung out with her and her friends yesterday.”
I laughed in surprise. “Damn, Grant, you’ve got all the prospects.”
He glanced away, trying to hide his grin. “So how do I know if she likes me?”
“You just do. Hang out with her long enough, get to know her as a friend, and you’ll know it in your gut if she likes you. Or bring her around Maritza, JaKory, and me, and we’ll figure it out for you.”
He shook his head. “No, no, that’s okay. I’ll just … yeah, I’ll just keep hanging out with her. Thanks.”
He shuffled back out of my room, closing the door behind him.
I stood there in wonder for a moment, shaking my head at all of it, until a laugh bubbled out of my throat. Then I went to take a shower before I ran out of time.