counter.
“Just thirsty,” said Cole. (Half true, at least.) He took a can of root beer from the fridge and slid into a chair at the table.
Taffy, who was older than Tracy and looked like an overfed, overtired version of her, swiveled in Cole’s direction. “I was just saying how much I can’t wait to get home and hang your picture.” And as the two women launched into a duet of his praises, agreeing how lucky Starlyn was to have such a great artist for a friend, Cole felt a prickly sensation behind his nose that was only partly from drinking soda.
What sounded like some kind of dance step made them all turn their heads in time to see Starlyn lollop into the room.
“There she is!” said Tracy, flinging her arms wide. But Starlyn twirled past her and across the floor to flop down at the table with Cole.
“You look like you just run a race,” Tracy said, and Starlyn began to laugh. She had a brash toot of a laugh, one thing about her that was not delicate at all.
“Oh, she’s in a race, all right,” Taffy drawled. “The race to be all grown up.” This made Starlyn laugh so hard she lost her breath, and her mother said, “Uh-oh. Looks like Birthday Girl’s had enough excitement for one day. We better hit the road.”
Cole was studying Starlyn as closely as he dared. Her mouth looked fuller than usual—awesomely close to what he’d had in mind when he was drawing it—and there were pink marks on her upper arms where the flesh had been pressed, which made him think of other marks that he couldn’t see but that he knew must be there.
Tracy said, “It’s Cole’s turn next”—causing him to slosh root beer up his nose before he realized she was talking about his own birthday coming up. “Did I say? The boys are taking a little trip.”
Just then, Cole noticed PW standing in the kitchen doorway. He was staring at Cole with the same meaningful look on his face as before. How long had he been there?
Suddenly it was too crowded for Cole. As PW crossed the room to get something from the fridge, Cole quietly got up and slipped out. Behind him he heard PW say something that made Starlyn toot again, and though he had no reason to think it had anything at all to do with him, Cole cringed.
From his bedroom window he looked down on Mason, slowly pacing the front lawn and smoking a cigarette.
Cole sat on his bed and leafed through his drawing pad, which was filled with sketches of Starlyn. They all looked different now. Not everyone would be able to tell, but he could tell. She was not the same anymore. His brand-new portrait was out of date.
At the end of that long day he lies on his stomach, seeing Mason’s dark hands on Starlyn’s white skirt and the bright smile of underpants, thinking what a wild thing it must be to have someone rubbing and squeezing your cheeks like that, fingers digging into your crack, like he owns you. He crushes a pillow between his thighs and he kneads it, kneads it, seeing the hands, being the hands, and feeling them, all at the same time.
An hour earlier, in the kitchen again but this time alone, he’d found himself standing by the chair Starlyn had been sitting on in her scrap of a dress, and almost without thinking, he’d bent down and sniffed the quilted chair pad handmade by Tracy.
He’d have thought any smell would have faded by now. But there it was. Neither as good as he’d heard nor as bad as he’d heard. Wet sand at the beach.
After the unbearable tension has been relieved, he feels soiled and vaguely mournful, he feels a little sorry for himself and a little disappointed, too—he feels the way he always feels when he masturbates. He is tired, but when he tries to sleep the teasing image of white underpants is still there, like the grin of the Cheshire cat.
PART THREE
It was their secret, and Cole respected secrets. He would not tell anyone what he had seen. Only he wanted to know more himself. For example, he wanted to know if what he had seen was the first time Mason and Starlyn had ever made out. He thought probably yes, but this was mainly because of the number of times in recent weeks he’d heard Mason mention the fact that on her birthday