Kissed (5 page)

They
gushed over him and he made them feel like the bouquets were the best thing
ever.
 
Sometimes Beth’s mother forgot
she’d only passed two kids out of her womb, not three.

He
got his fancy diploma,
then
they started trying to get
to the parking lot amid a thousand other people.
 
Mrs. Lindsey had made a reservation at a really
nice restaurant.
 
He and Beth climbed in
the back of the car.
 
She placed his
present on his lap so she could fasten her seatbelt.

“Can
I open it now?”

“If you want to.”

He
shredded the paper.
 
“A
notebook?”

“Look
inside.”

“Ah, notation paper!
You’re the best, Bethie.”
 
He draped his arm across her shoulders and
squeezed her arm.

She
blushed again.
 
“You’ll need it for all
those hit songs.”

“Damn
right.”

“
Jacob
,” Mrs. Lindsey scolded him.

“Sorry,
Mum.
Darn
right.”

Beth
saw her roll her eyes in the rearview mirror, and stifled a giggle.

“What’s
next for you, Jacob?” her mother asked.
 
She just
had
to bring that up.

“Moving
to London in
two weeks to get used to it,” he said.
 
He’d decided to pursue his music degree at one of the universities
there.

“And
find a job,” his mother added.

“Yes,
Mum,
and
find a job
. She’s not funding my summers, only my education.”

“Poor
baby,” Beth teased to keep from crying.
 

Four
years with an eight-hour time difference.
 
She’d been counting down the days since he told her his plans.
 
Probably be counting the hours, too.
 
She fantasized about one of those airport
romance movie scenes where the boy and girl kiss at the last minute instead of
parting forever.
 
But in this scenario,
she’d have to do the kissing and she was too chicken.
 
Ruining their friendship wasn’t worth
satisfying her crush.

So,
she toasted his graduation, helped him pack up what he could fly with, and said
goodbye to him at the terminal with a smile.
 
‘Cause that’s what best friends did.

Chapter Three

Keeping
in touch with Jacob across the world was hard.
 
Well, not on Beth’s end—she still didn’t have enough of a life to make
her too busy to write.
 

At
first, he called.
 

Then
he sent notes.
 

Then
she got the occasional postcard.
 

Once
classes started for him, she had more luck getting info from his mother.
 
It hurt, but life went on.
 

She
was sixteen, a junior, and ready to take her driving test soon.
 
Dad’s car would be hers to drive when he was
out of town.
 
Driving a car filled a hole
in her she didn’t know was missing.
 
It
was control.
 
It was freedom.
 
It was
fun
.
 
Without Jacob here as an excuse, she had to
make more friends.
 
Turned out, geeks
found each other pretty easily in AP classes.
 
She didn’t get close to anyone else, though.
 

Christmas
and Spring breaks were lonely.

****

First-year
music was easy.
 
Since he’d been playing
piano and guitar since he was a small lad, he passed the proficiencies, no
sweat.
 
The private voice lessons were
tougher.
 
Though he’d been in choirs
forever, there was apparently much technique he still didn’t know, and the
professor insisted he master classical pieces before modern ones.
 
Some days frustrated him to near tears.
 
But the classes for his major weren’t a
problem.

It
was the rest, the general education crap.
 
Though he tried to pick the easiest choices in the catalog, he was still
surprised by the amount of work presented.
 
Many dead trees were sacrificed in the name of higher education.
 
Faced with having fun or spending the weekend
stooped over a desk, he probably chose fun a few times too many, but what else
would an eighteen-year-old bloke do out on his own?
 
A bar band, a beer, and a pretty girl on his
arm made for good distraction.

Still,
a voice in the back of his head that sounded an awful lot like Beth kept
nudging him back to study, to press on.
 
She’d never let him hear the end of it if he flunked out first
year.
 
As always, she was his conscience,
the good little angel on his shoulder.
 

When
Jacob had finals week, Beth asked him how he thought he did.

Blueyedevil
: Alright, I think. Performance exams were a
piece of cake.
You?

Bookworm01:
Passed the AP tests in April, so those classes are auto A’s. So glad I don’t
have to take PE again. Are you coming home for summer?

Blueyedevil
: Don’t think so, Bethie.

Bookworm01:
Why not? School’s out.

Blueyedevil
: It’s expensive, and the band is pushing for
gigs now we have time. ‘Sides, you know Mum—I have to work.

Bookworm01:
You could work here.

Bookworm01:
I miss my best friend.

Blueyedevil
: Miss you, too, love.
Gotta
go.
Celebratory freedom date.

Bookworm01:
Oh.
Girlfriend?

Blueyedevil
: Could be. Later, Bethie!

He
signed off the messenger program.
 

Well, that sucked
.
 
No best friend for the summer plus he was out
with other girls and she was…

Beth
grew to five-foot-five over the year and finally felt she was starting to look
her age of seventeen.
 
She still didn’t
have much of a figure, yet, but at least she didn’t look
twelve
.

It
was summer and she was looking at college applications, so she toured the UCLA
campus and got lost in the beautiful library.
 
She’d already decided not to leave L.A.
as long as her parents were here.
 
Call
her a scared-y-cat, but she wasn’t ready to leave home, yet.
 
London
was the only other city that enticed her, but friendship wasn’t enough to make
her move to another continent.

She
and Mom went to visit Andrew for a week in August.
 
He had a serious girlfriend he wanted the
family to meet.
 
It was an awesome trip
and she could already tell she wouldn’t mind Darcy as a sister-in-law.
 

Her
high came crashing down when they got home.
 

Jacob
made a surprise visit for a few days and she wasn’t
there.
 
He left souvenirs
and a letter on her bed, but there was so much she would have said and wanted
to know.
 

Of all the rotten, stupid timing…

“Hey…”
she greeted him when the phone picked up.

“Hey, Bethie!
What’s up, love?”
 
He sounded distracted, some place noisy.

“I
don’t have a lot of minutes, but I wanted to say I’m sorry I missed you. Why
didn’t you tell someone you were coming?”

“Eh,
spur of the moment, pet, really. You should see us play. The band is really
takin
’ off, Bethie. I had to tell Mum before things get
crazy, ya know? I have a feelin’ about this like you wouldn’t believe.”
 
Even over an international phone line, his
accent was thicker after a year in London.

“That’s
great. When you make the radio I’ll tell people I knew you when.”
 

Jacob
getting famous scared her.
 
Distance made
it hard to keep in touch—becoming a rock star would make it impossible.
 
The worst of it?
 
She knew it would happen some day.

“Aww,
there’ll always be room for my number one fan, Bethie. Think you’ll like what I
brought you. Well, gotta go, pet. Rehearsal space
ain’t
cheap.”

“O-okay.
Keep me up to date, okay?”
 
He wasn’t reliable about it, but she could
still ask.
 
These phone calls never
lasted long enough.

“Sure, sure.
Bye!”

“B—”
 

Click
.
 

“Bye…”
 
She set the phone in the cradle, and sniffed,
something bothering her eye, and looked through her presents.
 
There was a t-shirt wrapped in plastic.
 
She tore that open and held up the shirt—a
band logo.
 
Jacob’s
band logo!
 
“Awesome!”
 

There
was some other London
stuff—tourist trinkets, mostly.
 
She set
the letter aside to read after dinner when she wouldn’t be interrupted.
 

When
she went to bed, she slept in the shirt.

Senior
year was a blur and too slow all at once.
 
Didn’t make sense, but the mind sensed the passage of time in weird
ways.
 

Her
eighteenth birthday carried little fanfare, but she did finally have a party, a
small one.
 
Dad barbequed and they were
out in the backyard until it got too warm.
 
A few class friends came over, other nerds that were cool to hang out
with.
 

Andrew
and Darcy sent a gift and she got an e-mail from Jacob, and her friends brought
gift cards.
 
Beth’s mother gave her an
old camera and the coordinating lenses.
 
You might think a hand-me-down present was cheap, but not this…she could
spend days playing with her new capabilities on film.

She
graduated second in her class and five foot seven.
 
Jacob sent a charm of a book for her
congratulations gift.
 
It was gold, or
gold-tone, and on a fine gold chain.
 
At
least, she thought it was from him.
 
Mrs.
Lindsey passed it on to her.
 
She chose
to believe his mother wasn’t covering for his forgetfulness since she didn’t
hear from him often these days.
 

Beth
wanted to fly out to London
to see him this summer, but her parents wouldn’t pay for it and she didn’t have
enough.
 
“Can’t you cover the rest? You
know what it would mean to me, and I’ll pay you back.”

Mom
shook her head.
 
“I’m sorry, honey. Your
father said absolutely no way. He doesn’t want you going that far alone.”

“But
I wouldn’t be alone there!”
 
Jacob would
take her in even if she didn’t call him first.

“Elizabeth, he made up his
mind before he left. Maybe when he gets back there will be time to—”

“Forget
it.”
 
She stomped into her room and
slammed the door shut.
 
Then she thought
of talking to Mrs. Lindsey about it.
 
She
was eighteen, could go where she wanted—just didn’t have the cash.
 
Luck was with her when she went around the
corner and found Mrs. Lindsey’s car in the driveway.
 
Opening the front door, she called out,
“Hello?”

“Elizabeth?”
 
Vivian Lindsey walked out of her kitchen.

“It’s
me.”
 
She closed the door since the AC
was on.
 
“Um, I wanted to ask you
something.”

She
led Beth into her living room to the sofa.
 
“What is it, dear?”

“Are
you visiting Jacob this summer?”

“Probably…why?”

“I…I’d
like to go with you. I haven’t seen him for two years, and once I start
college, there might not be time again.”

“Well,
Elizabeth, of
course I enjoy your company, but have you discussed this with your parents?”

She
had an answer prepared for that question.
 
“Mom’s fine with me going and Dad’s away on business again. I’m
eighteen, though, and I’ll be moving into the dorms in August, so, adult now.
I’ll even pay part of my way. Please?”

She
smiled.
 
“Just as
stubborn as my son.
Do you even have a passport?”

“Yup!
A trip like this would be educational, too, with the
history and the sights…get some nice photos for my portfolio…?”

Chuckling,
she shook her head.
 
“I pity the person
that stands in the way of your goals, Elizabeth.
Very well—”

Beth
squealed and hugged her, cutting off the rest of her sentence.
 
Might have squeezed a bit
too hard, now she was several inches taller than Vivian.
 
“Thank you, thank you! Say when and my bag is
packed.”

Two
weeks later, she sat at an airport gate waiting for them to call their row, foot
tapping impatiently.
 
Daddy wasn’t too
thrilled she found a way to circumvent his decision, but she didn’t care.
 
In a matter of hours, she’d see Jacob
again!
 
He knew his mother was coming,
but she hadn’t told Beth if he knew about her tagging along, as well.
 
She hoped to surprise him.

Mrs.
Lindsey put her house up for sale before they left, but that didn’t matter now,
either.
 
England was her home, and he would
be there indefinitely.
 
It made sense
she’d want to go back, though Beth would miss climbing over the fence and
chatting over cookies.

“Elizabeth, that’s us.”

“Okay!”

Vivian
grinned.
 
“You know you can’t bounce on
the plane, yes?”

She
blushed.
 
“Sorry. This is just a big deal
for me.”

She
hugged me with her free arm.
 
“I know,
dear. Strange as it may sound, I remember being eighteen.”