Handcuffs (23 page)

“Where should I park?” he asks me.

“Garage.” I pull the extra garage-door opener out of the leather messenger bag I use for my books. We don’t want the neighbors to wonder why there’s a strange car in the Prescott driveway, do we?

I try not to think about the last time he was here and everything that happened. There’s no reason to bring it up or even remember it. It seems like it happened a long time ago.

He pulls smoothly into the garage and I usher him into the kitchen.

“You want something to drink?” I ask, not really knowing what else to do.

“Yeah, sure.” We are standing on opposite sides of the kitchen counter. I walk to the refrigerator and open the door.

“Bottled water?” I toss him an Aquafina. He takes a long drink. Is it me or does he seem nervous?

“Would you like to come upstairs to my room?” I ask him in the same voice I used to offer him the water.

“God, yes.”

At least he’s sure what he wants, right? He hasn’t been in my room too many times. My parents are firm believers in the “no boys in the bedroom” policy. It hasn’t worked too well in keeping their daughters celibate, but maybe it makes them feel better about their parenting or something. We go upstairs. He steps over the fourth step to avoid the squeak, and I realize how good he is at remembering details. It’s almost enough to pull me out of the numbness. I feel the beginning of some deep-down emotion, but then it fades.

I look at my room for a second, the way I imagine he’s seeing it. The bed with the silky silvery pink down comforter and the zillion pink and white pillows. The fluttery striped canopy with ruffles. The curtains are ruffly too. The only thing I can be truly relieved about is the fact that last summer I took what was left of my toys, Barbies, and stuffed animals from every corner and storage box and sold them in a yard sale. The only stuffed animal in the room is the husky, who watches us from my nightstand.

He walks over to my dresser and noses around nonchalantly. He opens a drawer. It’s my panty drawer. I reach out to stop him, but then I don’t. I let him look.

“What do your parents think about you wearing these sexy panties?” Thank God he pulled out a nice pair. Thank God he thinks they’re sexy.

“I buy my own. I like my underwear to be coordinated.” This morning I put on my blue striped panties and my matching blue demibra. I shaved my legs twice.

“Did you think about me when you bought these?” He pulls out a pair of black lacy low-cut panties and holds them out to me.

“Yeah. I bought them in September.”

We look at each other. We weren’t together in September. Not even close. He hadn’t even looked at me in September, not that I was aware of.

“I think about you all the time,” I tell him. He knows this. I know that he knows this. Admitting it feels good, like, like a confession, I guess.

“I think about you, too, Parker.” He takes his wallet out and puts it on my nightstand. It’s the closest either of us has gotten to the frilly bed.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. I’ll wait for you, you know that, right?” He says this now. It’s the right thing to say, but it isn’t exactly what he means. He doesn’t want me to do something I don’t want to do, but he does want me to want this, and he wants it badly. Somehow I understand this and am more trapped now than ever.

I crawl up into the middle of the bed. You know how you’re comfortable in your own bed? How you can navigate it under any circumstances? I can feel my way to the right place. I touch the pillow with my hand. I changed the sheets this morning right after I shaved my legs the second time.

He follows me so that he is standing right there at the side of the bed, standing pressed against the mattress. On my knees, I am at eye level with him. I unbutton his shirt and pull it back away from him.

“Are you going to fold it?” he asks. We are so calm, calm enough to tease each other. And yet so very tense that the teasing feels forced. I do fold his shirt, properly, so that the creases will be right, and lay it on the nightstand. He’s wearing one of those undershirts that boys wear with dress shirts. I put my hands up under it and lift it up over his head. Then I unbutton his jeans. My hand fumbles and for a moment it’s terribly awkward.

“This isn’t fair. I want to see your matching bra and panties.” He sits down against the carved headboard and pulls me onto his lap. Under, over, on top of the pillows. His jeans are still on, though loosely.

We haven’t kissed yet. Usually we kiss first thing. We kiss for hours. We kiss until my lips swell up and tingle so much that they feel like they are separate from me.

He pulls my shirt over my head and breathes something that sounds like “Pretty” as he leans in and kisses the tops of my breasts. I am melting. My entire body is melting.

For the first time today, he kisses me, and time ceases to exist. I cease to exist. There is just the warmth of his skin against mine. Kissing is good. I know how this part goes, and I relax. A little.

And then I hear the door open downstairs, then slam. We look at each other. Someone is in my house. He gets up and walks across the room to the window. I watch him.

“Your sister,” he says. Paige parks in the driveway, so she probably doesn’t even know that his car is in our garage or that anyone is here. We look at each other for a minute, and then I put my shirt back on and tiptoe downstairs. Oh my God. How can this happen? What if he wants to leave? What if I want him to leave? Only I don’t, not this way. Not exasperated by me and my crazy erratic family with their interruptions.

Paige is standing in the middle of the kitchen with Daddy’s bottle of bourbon in her hand. I make a small sound and she turns toward me. Her sweater has fallen off her shoulder and there is a big purple bruise visible against her white skin. We have the same fair complexion, even though she used to go to the tanning bed a lot. She’s pale now.

“Paige?”

She glances at the clock on the microwave. Figures out that I’m not supposed to be here and gives me a wicked grin. “Is the Princess sick today?”

“Paige, I thought you had a test today?”

“I’ll get an excuse note from the infirmary.” She splashes some of the bourbon into a cup. Her sweater is still hanging, like she’s lost weight, and she’s always been thin. I reach out but then can’t touch it, so I just stand there with my hand hovering over the mark. She pulls her sweater up, and for a second, as I look into her eyes, she looks really old. Like ancient-and-tired-of-the-world old. It scares me, and I don’t want to deal with this right now. She’s probably just stressed, right?

The screech of the garage door opening makes both of us jump. Oh no. Mom or Dad? I don’t want to see either of them, and I know Paige doesn’t either. The door to the garage is just past the refrigerator. Paige opens it, with the bourbon still in her hand. The first thing we both see is the Saab.

“Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t alone?”

I don’t say anything. How can I tell her that the way she looked standing there, bruised, with my dad’s bourbon in her hand in the middle of the day, made me forget? Beyond the Saab is a gold Camry and some kind of monolithic SUV. I can breathe again. It isn’t either of my parents.

“Oh God. It’s Theresa again.” Paige takes a long gulp straight out of the bourbon bottle. “Oooh, look at the closet space, ooh look at the stainless-steel range,” she says in a high ugly voice. “We won’t tell them that the garbage disposal doesn’t work, and maybe they won’t notice that there isn’t a basement.” She takes an even longer drink, and then sets the bottle on the counter. “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll get rid of them for you. Better get out of here, though. Mom is sure to hear about this, and you don’t want to ruin your perfect record.” Paige can’t seem to get it through her head that my record isn’t perfect anymore. I watch her. I can tell that something big is about to happen. She never calls me “kid.” That’s what she usually calls Preston. The sibling she likes.

I step back into the hallway to listen. Sure enough, I can hear Theresa chattering away about the landscaping and the two-car garage. Her artificially cheerful voice is exactly the same as the one Paige was using to mock her.

“House isn’t for sale.” Paige sounds drunker than I’ve ever heard her, drunker than she was five seconds ago. I remember suddenly that Theresa is Paige’s godmother. How awful for both of them.

“Paige?” Theresa says. “What are you doing here? You know your parents are selling, that I’m showing the house.”

“You’re wrong. This house is not for sale,” Paige yells, and she slams the door and slides the dead bolt into place. “Let’s see them get in now,” she says. But they don’t even try. Theresa is a professional realtor. She doesn’t make money by breaking into houses and showing them to people.

Paige was right. I’m sure our mom is going to hear about what just happened. Theresa is probably calling her right now.

I turn and tiptoe upstairs. When I peer out the hallway window the Camry and the SUV are both gone. My sister works fast. The Volkswagen is pulling out of the driveway. She was faking being drunk, right? She has to be safe to drive, because there’s no way to stop her now.

I push my door open. He’s sitting at my computer. I absolutely hate for people to get into my private stuff. I stand there in the doorway, unsure how I should feel.

“Parker?” His voice sounds bored, but I know that the bored thing is kind of an act.

“Yeah?”

“What’s all this, this folder? Are you blackmailing someone?”

This day has not been anything like I planned. I have this deal where I get something in my head, as minutely detailed as imagining what he will say to me and what I will say to him. Sure, I can take a little deviation from the script, but when everything is different and my entire day gets subsequently fucked, it infuriates me. He sees the look on my face.

“Hey, Park, it’s just me. I’m on your side, so you don’t have to kill me, okay? Okay?” He’s laughing.

“Are you making fun of me?” I’m suddenly so angry that I actually clench my fists.

“A little bit. Are you seriously blackmailing somebody?”

“Do you think I invited you over here to snoop through my e-mail?” I start to unbutton my shirt with jerky motions. I have to distract him, to salvage this thing we’ve planned. To get our day back on track.

“Hey, don’t get all agitated, Prescott.” He stands up and puts his arms around me and we stand between the desk and the bed for several minutes, until the trembling stops. It’s because of him that it stops. That’s how I know that what I’m thinking of doing is right. I’m ready for whatever comes next.

“I’m not agitated,” I say in a shaky voice.

“No?” He kisses me, and then he climbs back into my bed.

Is it weird that at one point I wonder whether I will ever tell Raye or anyone about exactly what is happening? Then he distracts me and I mostly don’t think about anything.

A little later, he goes back to my panty drawer and pulls out the black lacy panties again.

“I guess Raye told you, huh?” he says.

“What?” He’s so calm, able to talk normally. This is like everyday stuff to him.

“When you bought these in September, I guess Raye had told you.”

“Told me what?” I try to act calm and cool too.

“That I called her up. Went over to her house, to ask her about you, if she thought you’d be interested in going out with me.” His tone is weird and I can’t tell if it’s because of what’s happened between us or some other thing.

“No, she didn’t tell me. What did she say?” He was interested in me then, asking about me? I feel insanely happy.

“She said she didn’t think you would be interested, that I wasn’t your type.”

I am lacing up my shoes and not looking at him. Wondering what Raye thought my type was, wondering if she thought she was protecting me from him. I watch him put the panties back in the drawer and close it. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. I find it amazing and daunting that another person has been so thoroughly together with me. And now we are apart, but he’s right here, where I can reach out and touch him.

“If I bought you something lacy and see-through, would you wear it?”

“Yes.” I hear myself answer faintly. I think I’ve proven that I will do anything for him.

“I have something for you,” I tell him. He’s standing by my door, looking in my full-length mirror. He touches his hair where it’s sticking up a little, and I would laugh at him, but for some reason I don’t feel like laughing. In the very bottom drawer of my desk, under the extra loose-leaf paper, are the handcuffs.