Ditched (3 page)

“Okay,” Gilda says. “I mean . . .
what
?” I shrug. “No kissing al owed until the guy proved he had the material. Until then, lips locked.” I press my lips together, reminding myself what they feel like. “It’s been eight months and twelve days since I kissed a boy. I was going to final y unlock my lips for Ian. At prom.” The bel at the sliding door rings. The man who was pumping gas in the old Mercedes strol s around the store.

Gilda holds her hand up to me and whispers, “Hold on a sec.”

She helps him find some individual packets of Tylenol, then rings him up. He’s older with a pudgy middle and a rumpled shirt.

While he fishes through his leather wal et for money, he glances my way. And as he hands Gilda a twenty, he’s still looking my way.

I shift on my stool. What’s this guy’s problem?

“You need a lift?” He asks.

19

I laugh. A nervous laugh. Not real y a laugh. “Me? No.”

“Her ride’s coming,” Gilda lies.

He puts his wal et away and gives me a smirk. “Looks like you worked a rough shift last night. Hope you made enough to buy yourself a new dress.”

Oh my god, this ass thinks I’m a hooker!

He scoops up his bag of Tylenol—hangover medicine, I’m sure—and saunters out before I can tel him he’s so rude for assuming I’m a hooker because I’m only sixteen and this is my prom dress and my boyfriend who is not my boyfriend ditched me, and no, I do
not
have a ride home!

But I’ve gotten good at not confronting people. I let out a deep sigh instead.

When he’s gone, Gilda turns to me with big eyes. “He doesn’t know you haven’t even kissed a boy in eight months.

He’s a jerk.”

I shake my head. Given the reputation I managed to create for myself, money may be the only thing that keeps me from being a hooker. A kissing hooker. “He’s probably not total y off base. I’ve kissed a lot of guys in my past.” She waves me off. “Oh, who hasn’t.”

“A lot.” I clear my throat and hope she doesn’t ask—

“How many?”

Of course she asks. I clench my fists and look away. “A little more than a dozen.” Silence, no response. “Or so,” I add quietly.

“Or
so
?!” Her eyes are satel ite disks.

20

“It’s not like it’s triple digits or anything. And it’s not something I’m super proud of, except at first . . . I kind of . . .

was.”

Which is true. When I first started my excessive lip landings, I was a freshman and I was so excited about my success rate I wanted to put it on my résumé—in bold, italics, everything. I was
proud.

“But nothing ever materialized. No boyfriend,” I explain to her. “I just real y, real y like kissing. It’s my drug of choice, I guess. It’s like I have a kissing disorder—I’ve overdosed on it and now I can’t even get one simple smooch from my prom date. I mean, it’s
prom
.
Everyone
gets kissed on prom night! What is wrong with me?” I look down at my muddy feet.

I feel like a non-human at this point. Realizing that it’s come to this. Me without any dignity—completely alone and jonesing only for the feel of his lips—and he’s probably off with Al yson Moore doing whatever he’s doing. I take a breath and look up at Gilda. “I’m always The Girl At That Party, never The Girl.”

“Sounds like you’ve kissed one too many toads.”

“And toads never turn into boyfriends. Not in my case.”

“But Ian proved he was boyfriend material?”

“Yeah. Except it took a long time for me to realize it.

We were . . . friends. For a long time. Like, almost nine months. I mean, that’s how long it takes to incubate a baby, or whatever.” I take a bite of the gummy bear, feeling more 21

settled. “Ian drove me to school every day. And he’d remind me which color uniform I needed for a track meet. I trusted him.” I stare at the half-eaten gummy bear, getting lost in the memories of him. “It’s strange how you can be friends with someone for so long and then one day he brings you licorice and Motrin because you’re whacked out from heinous painful cramps straight from the Devil, but you notice he’s wearing a new shirt that’s a certain shade of green and . . .

whammo! Your insides turn to pudding and all you can do is think about making out with him. He’s the same guy, doesn’t change a bit from one day to the next”—I start to think about his eyes, his mouth—“but because a color brings out his eyes, you suddenly realize . . .”

Gilda finishes my sentence. “Boyfriend material.” I sigh. “Total y.”

That damn green shirt. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for that stupid color.

It’s like some nightmare
Sesame Street
episode:
This
month’s gut-wrenching, painful heartache brought to you by the
color green!

But I quickly snap back to reality and remind myself that I am tel ing this story to the cashier at the 7-Eleven due to the fact that Ian Clark left me on prom night and I ended up in a ditch on Hol ister Road.

Screw the color green.

I sit up and clear my throat. “He total y
was
boyfriend material. At least I never kissed the guy.” 22

“That’s good. I guess.”

Maybe Gilda is right. It is good we never kissed. That way we don’t have to worry about any “weirdness.” Except that our friendship has come to a complete halt, and I’ll have to find a new ride to school. Which is a total pain. So I should’ve just kissed him and gotten something out of this ridiculous mess. Plus, I stil can’t help but wonder what it would’ve been like.
Curse you, wonder.

“Or maybe I should’ve kissed him. Just once? Like maybe I should’ve done it a long time ago, not sat around waiting for the perfect moment. I could’ve gotten it out of the way.”

“Like a chore?”

I laugh at that. I’ve never thought of kissing as a chore.

More of a sport. “I just don’t want to have to wonder anymore.”

“Wonder what?”

“If he’s the perfect kisser. Some guys are—they know exactly how much tongue to give, when to be gentle, and when to put on the deep pressure.”

She quickly pops another gummy bear in her mouth and fake coughs.

“Sorry. Too much?” I wince.

She gazes off in the distance toward the hot-dog cooker.

“No. Actual y, I know exactly what you mean.” I snag another handful of bears from the bag and start gnawing. It real y seems to calm the nerves. “Okay then, so you know that there are also guys who are sucky kissers. Too wet. Too toothy. Too much tongue. Too much breathing.

23

Too much coloring outside the lines, you know what I mean?

I want to know which category he fal s in.”

“You stil want to know?”

Immediately I picture him talking to Al yson Moore next to that pool and then overhearing that phone conversation in the In-N-Out Burger bathroom. “No. Not anymore. Al Ian Clark got me was a ruined dress. And the worst night of my life.” I straighten out my stained dress.

Al yson Moore.

Just
thinking
about her almost makes me throw up in my mouth. I mean, what was it exactly that he couldn’t resist?

Her strappy, silver Jimmy Choo pumps? Or her pale pink lip gloss with a hint of glitter? Surely it wasn’t her remarkable intel igence—the girl thinks monogamy is a type of dark wood. Maybe he found her lack of common vocabulary terms adorable?

None of this makes sense. Why am I the one who ended up in the ditch, not Al yson? I know . . . girly parts. That’s why. He’s always had a thing for the female form—boobs, to be exact. Which is something I do not natural y possess, despite my support from Victoria’s Secret.

But Ian is not the kind of guy who would leave me alone in a ditch. And somewhere deep in me, maybe in some file buried in my brain, I know this is true.

At least, I
hope
it’s true.

This picture is so fuzzy . . . no crisp black and whites . . .

just grays . . . and unanswered questions.

24

Gilda leans toward me to get a better look at my stained outfit. “What
are
al these?”

Looking them over, I realize each one tel s a little piece of the story of what happened to me last night. Like a quilt—a stain quilt. A disastrous, heartbreaking, nasty-ass stain quilt.

“You real y want to know?”

Gilda looks around at the empty store, another sad country song blaring in the background. She shrugs. “It’s real busy, but I guess I could spare some time.” She tosses a gummy bear at me, then gives me a sneaky smile. “I gotta hear about this Ian Clark guy.”

I point to the very first stain of the night—the one near the hem of my dress. It’s the greenish-yel ow one.

The one I got from him.

25

2

Yellow Curry, Extra Coriander

IT WAS YESTERDAY. 5:30 p.m. I had just gotten back from a jog over to the CVS to pick up the perfect color of nail polish: Barbados Blue. The same color as my dress, true, but at least it wasn’t Black Cherry. Tonight, I would be daring.

I had carefully instructed my mother not to answer the door with a spoon full of lentil stew or barley goop or whatever vegetable concoction she had created and force it into Ian’s mouth. He might not like it. Or he might not be hungry. Or he might be nervous and not want to make small talk with my mother about how tasty the lentils were.

I happened to like lentils, but—let’s face it—most people think they taste like clods of dirt.

27

Of course Mom didn’t pay attention to my request. She was making a big pot of curry. And I could sense it was going to end up in Ian’s mouth.

“Why are you making me dinner?” I was stil in my running clothes, crunching on a Honeycrisp apple, talking with my mouth ful . “We’re eating dinner at the hotel.” Mom could make a mean lentil stew, and her curry was even more amazing. She never forced me into being a vegetarian, but when I was nine I watched a science show on how things are made. Once I found out how they
real y
make hot dogs, I joined her and never looked back. Meat and I formal y divorced. But even though she was a fantastic vegetarian cook, it didn’t mean she should force it on Ian.

She blew on the stew to cool it down, and took a bite.

“It’s not for you. Fundraiser tonight. Remember?” Uh, no. I didn’t remember because Mom’s schedule is full of fundraisers. And committee meetings. And action planning groups. And committee meetings about the planning groups for the fundraisers, or something. It’s exhausting. For me, anyway.

“Wanna taste?” Mom wasn’t asking me. She was asking Sol, our chocolate Labrador retriever. She always treated him like he was royalty—like he was just as important as the President’s dog, or Oprah’s dog.

Sol licked the spoon, as wel as al the drops on the floor.

“Don’t tel Daddy,” she said as she patted him on the head.

I crossed my arms. “You know Dad would throw you 28

into the backyard if he saw you feeding Sol people food.”

“But he doesn’t understand how much Sol loves my curry.” She winked. “It’s the extra coriander.” Since Dad was out of town, Mom was using Sol as a taste tester for her fundraiser curry instead of me, which was fortunate because it didn’t do any favors for people who wanted kissable breath. It was also fortunate Dad was out of town because he wouldn’t be able to greet Ian at the door and use his psychology on him.

Calm, assertive voice.

Confident stance.

No means no.

And by psychology I mean
pet psychology
. Dad cal s himself “Dog Trainer to the Stars!” He once happened to meet Meryl Streep at one of Mom’s fundraisers and had an impromptu dog training session with her Irish setter in the parking lot of the Hyatt. He immediately updated his résumé. Only he rarely trained celebrities’ dogs; it was the hairstylist or massage therapist or dermatologist of a star who cal ed. But because of that little line on his résumé, he now got cal ed off to Los Angeles and Palm Springs whenever a person who knew a movie star needed dog training.

The weekend of my prom he was training Hal e Berry’s manicurist’s pug how to heel.

While my dad’s job may sound glamorous—or not—

it’s not like we’re rich. But we aren’t poor, and we don’t go without food or anything, and I always get stuff like fuzzy 29

slippers and watches every Christmas, so there real y is nothing to complain about.

But the one time I did consider complaining was a week ago when Mom took me shopping for my prom dress at a consignment shop, not the mal .

“This way, part of it wil go to the person who donated the dress. Someone who
real y
needs the money. It’s a win-win,” Mom had said.

Not that I wanted an expensive dress from the mal —

it seemed like an excessive waste of money for something I was only going to wear once. But the secondhand shop didn’t feel quite right either. It was fine for normal everyday clothes, but
formal
wear? Weird things happened to people dressed in formal wear, especial y when worn to a party that more than likely got out of control. I couldn’t be sure what that particular dress had witnessed.