17 First Kisses (10 page)

“He said, ‘See you
tonight,'
and he winked at me.”

Amberly grabs my hands, and we jump up and down screaming.

“This is going to be the best night ever!” she yells.

I see my dad's green SUV and shush her.

“Hey, Daddy.”

We climb into the middle seats that make me feel like an airplane pilot.

“Hey, Claire-Bear. Look in the bag.”

I rustle around in the canvas grocery bag at my feet. “Bananas and guacamole?”

He laughs. “That's for your mom. The other bag.”

The other bag contains hot dogs and everything you need to make the perfect s'more.

“Thanks, Mr. Jenkins,” says Amberly. “I am sooo excited about the campout.”

She bursts into a fit of giggles, and I kick her.

“What are the bananas and guacamole for?” she asks.

“Mama has
cravings.”

“They get weirder every month,” says Daddy. “But as long as she doesn't dip the bananas in the guacamole, I'm okay with it.”

We pitch the tent as soon as we get home. We borrow Sarah's because it's purple and has a ceiling fan (she refused to go on family camping trips until my parents bought it). My dad sets up the fire pit and repeats fire-pit safety instructions I've heard, like, a hundred and fifty times. Roasting things on sticks only keeps us occupied for so long, though.

“Is it midnight yet?” whines Amberly.

“Um, no. It's still daylight.”

“Ugh. I cannot wait to make out with Glenn.”

The boys are under strict instructions not to come within ten feet of my house until midnight, when we're pretty sure my parents and Glenn's will both be asleep. We change into our pj's, me into a fitted tee and soccer shorts, Amberly into a low-cut tank top and Soffes rolled over at the waistband until they barely cover her butt. We take magazine quizzes to find out which
Hollywood starlet we would be BFFs with and whether Glenn and Eric are our soul mates. Libby storms the tent and tries to join our sleepover, but I banish her to the house, and then my parents make me apologize for making her cry.

“Little brothers and sisters are
so
an
noy
ing.”

“Tell me about it,” says Amberly.

“I can't believe my mom is having another one. And she's forty-one! I don't want a smelly little brother to babysit.”

“It's the worst. All I ever do is babysit.” Amberly flips her magazine shut and tosses it back in the pile. “What time is it now?”

“Nine forty-five,” I reply. “Hey, we could write notes to them while we wait.”

“Yeah. Let's do that,” she says, so I run to my room to get stationery and markers.

“‘Dear Glenn,'” Amberly reads aloud as she writes in blue marker with her bubbly handwriting. “‘I can't wait to make out with you in two hours and fifteen minutes. XOXO, Amberly. P.S. I think you're hot.'”

My letter to Eric is not so bold:

Dear Eric,

What's up? NMH. Amberly and I just finished making s'mores, and now we're counting down the hours till we get to see you.

Claire

After we finish writing, we spend huge amounts of time putting on lipstick and making kiss marks. We practice on a blank piece of paper to make sure we get them just right. Amberly has Angelina Jolie lips, so her kisses look like they could eat mine.

“Ew. Don't open your mouth so big on your kisses.”

“Why?” She looks at me slyly.

“I don't know. It looks slutty or something.”

“Because it looks like a blow job?”

“Amberly!” I pretend to be scandalized, even though I secretly want to know anything she has to tell me.

“Have you ever given one?” she asks.

“No. And I never would!”

“I would. I'm going to let Glenn touch my boobs tonight.”

I gasp. “Over the shirt or under?” The nuances are very important here.

She shrugs. “We'll see.”

We can't bear to wait until midnight, so we tiptoe out of our tent around eleven, hop the fence in my backyard, then sneak along the other fences until we get to Glenn's. Leaves and twigs crackle and snap under our feet as we creep up to the boys' tent. I can see Glenn's brown curls and Eric's copper-colored shag through the triangle of light that makes up the tent's doorway. They sit hunched over handheld video games with their backs toward us. All that zapping and beeping covers the sound of our approach. At the last second, Amberly and I rush the sides of the tent and pound against them with our fists.

Swearing fills the tent and the boys stumble out. We
exchange awkward hi's all around.

“So, we just wanted to give you these,” says Amberly.

“We better go in case my parents check on us.”

We hand them the notes before scurrying back into the woods.

Ten minutes later, the boys are at the door of our tent with notes of their own. We grow braver and braver with every note swap. We stray farther, stay longer. We don't know this is practice for the nights we'll sneak out Amberly's window and steal her mom's beat-up Volkswagen for a joyride. Amberly gets bored with writing and wants action. So at the bottom of the next note she scrawls,
P.S.—Meet us behind Claire's dad's shed at 12:07.

“But it's twelve o'clock right now,” I say.

“Exactly. We better hurry.”

We tear through the woods to the boys' campout, hopping fences and tripping over tree roots in the moonlight. When we reach their tent, we chuck the notes inside, giggling, and run away. We don't stop until we're back in my yard, where we lean against the shed and wait, panting and whispering.

My heart races—from the run and because of what I hope will happen next. After a few minutes, we hear leaves rustling by the fence. Amberly squeezes my wrist and grins.

“Claire?” Eric's whisper winds through the trees.

“We're over here,” I say back.

Eric and Glenn start to take shape in front of us.

“Hey, girls,” says Glenn. “What's the urgent meeting about?”

“Come inside the shed with me, and I'll show you,” Amberly says in the low, sexy voice she uses in front of boys. “See you guys.”

She winks at Eric and me and drags Glenn through the door into the shed. I'm glad it's dark tonight, because I can feel my cheeks turning bright pink, partly because of Amberly and partly because I am alone with Eric for the first time.

“Hey.” I kick at the dirt with my Pumas.

“Hey,” he says back.

A giggle echoes inside the shed, so we walk farther into the backyard, and I lean against my pear tree. My parents do this thing where they plant a fruit tree each time they have a kid. A Shenandoah pear for me. A Belle of Georgia peach for Sarah. A Hollywood purple-leaf plum for Libby. I like to think our trees mean something. Peaches are fussy trees that require lots of care. Pears are easy to grow. Strong and resilient.

Eric takes a step closer. So close I can see his green eyes have a gold ring around the edges. This is it! I must look scared, because he says, “I won't kiss you if you don't want me to.”

Isn't he the sweetest? “I don't mind,” I say.

I know, I know, I'm
dying
for him to kiss me, but I'm trying to play it cool, okay? Apparently that was all the encouragement he needed, because before I can blink, we're kissing. And it is. The. Best. Kiss. Ever. It's my first kiss with any feelings behind it. And now all the anticipation leading up to this moment and all my feelings for Eric flow through our open mouths like it's some kind of emotional energy transfer. It's a rush that spreads to the
tips of my toes. After that first kiss, we kiss again and again, each time creating another jolt of magical energy. They say people in France call French kisses
soul kisses.
I am certain by the way he is kissing me that Eric is kissing me with his whole soul.

Later, when the boys are gone and we're tucked into our sleeping bags, Amberly pounces on me. “How was it?”

“Amazing.”

“It was so hot making out in the shed. I mean, the saws and drills and axes hanging from the walls kind of made me feel like I was in a horror movie, but when Glenn pushed me on top of your dad's workbench, it was awesome. For a second I thought he was gonna screw me, and then my life would be over—”

“What?”
I'm not ready to even think about doing anything but kissing. Okay, maybe I sometimes
think
about things, but I would never, ever do them. Plus, it sounds like she doesn't think she has a choice in the matter. “Do you
want
to have sex with him?”

“No.”

“Well. Then, why would you? I mean, you don't have to.”

“I don't know. I guess I'm worried he'll break up with me if I don't. I feel like I have to do stuff with boys or they'll leave me . . . but they always end up leaving me anyway.”

She doesn't add
like my dad
, but I know we're both thinking it.

Amberly shrugs. “So, how were things with Eric?”

I lie back against my pillow and gaze dreamily at the purple ceiling fan.

“I think I might love him.”

I'm addicted to kissing. It's all I want to do—every second I'm with him. And when I'm not, it's all I can think about until the next time we're together. The average person spends 20,160 minutes of their lifetime kissing, and I swear Eric and I are trying to squeeze all those minutes into a few weeks. We try lots of Amberly's suggestions. Now that the first kiss is out of the way, I'm not particular. We even find a few places of our own.

“Amberly, you have to try the stairs that lead down to the gym,” I say, as soon as I squeeze into a chair beside her at lunch. “No one is ever there if you get a hall pass at the same time and meet up.”

“Score. Maybe I'll take Glenn there this afternoon.”

Megan rolls her eyes when she thinks I can't see. She and Britney don't have boyfriends right now.

“Can we puh-lease talk about something else besides kissing?” she asks.

Jealous.

“Isn't he your first boyfriend?” Britney looks sideways at Megan. They've been thick as thieves since I started going out with Eric.

I pretend not to notice her tone. She's been nice to me ever since I officially became a Crownie, but every now and then a sharpness slips into her voice. “Yeah. He's great. I'm so lucky we found each other. He's, like, the perfect guy.”

Megan sighs and pokes at her salad.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yeah. I'm fine.”

She doesn't look fine. Maybe she's really bummed about not having a boyfriend right now. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with Eric—she's always seemed so okay with him being my boyfriend. Or maybe she's been fighting with her parents about school again. Bs are unacceptable in the McQueen family.

Toward the end of lunch, Eric stops by our table and gives me a back rub. My chewing slows until I'm holding a Tater Tot almost stationary between my back molars. I totally can't eat while he's touching me.

“How's it going?” he asks Megan.

“Good. Everything is really awesome.”

She smiles at him, and they talk about how his big brother went to the carnival last night.

After school, Britney and I hang out at Megan's house because Britney is spending the night with her. Megan is back to normal—for a while.

“We have to ride the Ferris wheel when we go to the carnival tonight,” says Britney.

“Oh! You guys are going to the carnival. That's so cool. I want to go.”

Megan raises her eyebrows at Britney.

“Do you want to go all four of us?” I ask.

Megan picks nonexistent lint off her lavender bedspread. “Um. Let me go ask my mom.”

She shuffles to the door and leaves the room as slowly as
humanly possible.

“I'm sure she'll say yes,” I tell Britney. “This'll be awesome.”

The carnival is one of those caravan ones that come to town every year with dilapidated rides held together by paper clips and a prayer. Everyone knows someone whose cousin's friend's nephew died in a tragic accident on one. And there are weird things like pig races and stands selling cotton candy and funnel cakes. I can almost taste the powdered sugar and fried batter.

Megan's door opens again, but she just stands there like she doesn't want to enter the room. “Um. My mom says I can only have one friend come to the carnival with me and spend the night. So, I guess it'll just be me and B.”

She says all this with her eyes fixed somewhere around my chin. A tense and awkward silence follows.

“Oh. Um, okay.”

I think it's weird for her mom to make such an arbitrary decision—plus, I thought she liked me. I think it's weird that Megan is sitting on her bed looking guilty and uncomfortable instead of storming around the room calling her mom a controlling witch. I think it's weird that this all feels very personal in a way I can't pinpoint.