Love and Leftovers (14 page)
Read Love and Leftovers Online
Authors: Sarah Tregay
“You’d kiss her again. I know you would.”
“Yeah,” he sighed.
“I’m not good at the long-distance thing.”
“Me neither.”
When I get home,
Mom takes me outside
to show me a Subaru Outback
parked in our space behind the apartment.
She unlocks the doors,
turns the key in the ignition.
“Heated seats,” she says,
sounding like she wants me to say something.
(I want to ask about her old car back in Boise
and if I can drive it when I get my license.)
“It’s nice,” I say instead.
“And it’ll be good in the snow.”
This car is all Mom.
Practical.
Understated.
And so not Daddy.
Dad and Mom don’t tell the Grapes
exactly why
I’m leaving.
We just enjoy lobsters at Newick’s
as if it were the Fourth of July
instead of the evening after Christmas.
Mom wrestles her crustacean
into submission,
refusing any assistance
from Dad
while Greta brags that her lobster pie
is already out of the shell.
Arthur cracks Gigi’s claws,
and Gigi gives me the best pieces,
to convince me that
I need to like lobster more than I do
if I want to be a New Englander
after all.
It will take forty-one hours and thirteen minutes
to drive Dad’s Mustang home. (Mom drove it in four
days, back in June.)
New Hampshire (I don’t want to leave.)
Massachusetts (I can’t tell Dad.)
New York (Because I don’t want Dad to
think I don’t love him.)
Pennsylvania (I do.)
Ohio (But I miss J.D.)
Indiana (I buy J.D. a postcard in Gary.)
Illinois (It takes me all the way to La Salle to
decide what to write.)
Iowa (I miss Mom, too.)
Nebraska (“I love you,” she says when I call
from Lincoln.)
Wyoming (“I’m sorry I was so much trouble,”
I admit from Cheyenne.)
Utah (“I’m proud of you,” Dad says.)
Idaho (“This won’t be an easy adjustment,
but I know you can do it.”)
Dad doesn’t want to risk getting stuck in the snow
so he listens to the weather report
as if it were the gospel,
and only drives
when the roads have been cleared,
the visibility is decent,
and the flurries light.
It takes us all week.
Our drive from Ogden to Boise
takes all day because of the snow.
I’m tired and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed
for the first time in seven months.
Seeing my house with its little yard,
blue shutters, and yellow glow of a lamp left on
fills me with familiar comfort, like a dream. Only better.
Stepping into the family room, I close my eyes and inhale
the sweet scent of home: maple syrup, cinnamon candles,
and Downy dryer sheets.
It smells like a dream. Only better.
Opening my eyes,
I see a boyish man with an Abercrombie body,
a kind smile, and robin’s-egg blue eyes,
wearing nothing but pajama bottoms,
who looks like a dream. Only better.
I jump backward and nearly yelp when
I realize I’m not asleep and he is talking to me.
“Sorry, Marcie, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He knows my name.
I squint at him.
He looks a little older than UNH frat boys, but not much.
“Marcie, you’ve met Danny?” Dad says.
“The boyfr— the bartender, yes.”
I just didn’t remember him being so
cute.
My house feels familiar, but oddly different.
I wander from room to room, taking inventory:
There are more gadgets in the kitchen,
including an espresso machine.
There are more books on the shelves,
including Ayn Rand novels.
There’s an electric razor on the bathroom sink,
next to Dad’s regular one.
There’s another car in the garage,
a baby-blue 1969 Pontiac GTO.
(Mom’s old car is parked outside.)
There is nothing different about Dad and Mom’s room,
except Dad has moved
into the guest room with Danny
and Mom isn’t here.
At least I have my security blanket,
pancake mix, and maple syrup,
to make me feel better about
coming home.
or Katie
on the day before school starts.
I am too humiliated
to admit
that I
dumped my boyfriend
and never
bothered
to
inform
him.
I step out of Danny’s gleaming
baby-blue Pontiac GTO
in my leather boots and an old denim skirt
topped with a soft gray sweater.
My short-cropped hair
accessorized with a little clip.
My features accented with mascara
and minty Burt’s Bees lip gloss.
(It’s so nice to have a closet full of clothes
and a vanity drawer full of makeup.)
With registration papers
and immunization record
in hand,
I should have been ready
for my first day of school.
But
I’m not.
Linus isn’t ready for the girl
who smiles at him
with Burt’s Bees minty lips
because he thinks
I’m someone else.
I am.
“God, you look hot,”
Linus whispers,
wrapping both hands around my head
and kissing my lips so hard
I can’t speak
or kiss back.
Softening,
he releases the pressure,
kisses my top lip,
and runs his tongue along the ticklish line
where my lip stops and my mouth begins.
If I had planned to protest,
I no longer could.
I gasp for air
as a wave of tingles surfs down my spine.
Eyes closed tight,
we dive, together,
into a dizzying sea
of kisses.
Underwater
I can’t hear a single sound in the hall.
As if everyone has stopped to watch
me drown.
when Katie bounces down the hall,
tackles us, spins us around,
and sings, “Marcie, Marcie, Marcie!”
“I missed you,” I tell her ear
as I wrap her in a bear embrace
that dances with happiness.
“I can’t wait to catch up,
to show you my drawings
and the manga I’m writing.
You’ll help me with the words,
won’t you, Marcie?”
“Yes,” I tell her,
because I want to spend
every waking moment
together.
Eating Lunch with the Leftovers
Linus is humming a lullaby, scrawling lyrics on a napkin.
Katie is wearing a prom dress over jeans and Converse.
Angelo is tutoring Katie in math
and looking down her dress.
Emily is buttoning a flannel shirt over her perfect figure.
Olive is sewing Girl Scout badges to a vest.
Carolina is dipping the tines of her fork into vinegar
then into her salad.
Garrett is telling Ian about riding his bicycle
to Lake Lowell,
and Ian is drumming his responses in Morse code.
Our lunch table is so weird,
and at the same time, so normal,
that I am overcome with sappy,
made-for-TV nostalgia
and announce,
“I missed you guys!
I’m glad to be back.”
Amid the hugs and high fives,
I’m happy
I have friends
like the Leftovers.
You don’t decide
to be or not to be.
Social suicide is not a question.
(At least not in a world divided
by cafeteria tables
and after-school activities.)
Because
just like that—
with Linus’s kiss,
Katie’s hug,
and lunch with my friends—
I had become a Leftover
all over
again.
My school day is a blur
of lectures without beginnings,
novels I have not read,
math problems I can’t solve,
and quizzes I have no answers for.
Instead of listening reading computing answering,
I walk through scenarios
in which I tell Linus about J.D.:
“I really liked him,” I’d explain.
“I really needed a friend,” I’d say.
“Yeah, it got a little out of control,”
I’d soften the blow. “I kissed him.”
“But J.D. and I said good-bye.
He had a girlfriend and I have you.”
“I won’t see him again,” I’d promise.
“So if you aren’t gay,” I’d say gently,
“and if you like me like I like you,
we should give our relationship
another try,
time to preheat,
simmer,
bake.”
I’d explain
because I owe it to him,
because I’ve been a crap girlfriend,
because,
after That Kiss,
I want to kiss him
again.
(FALL OUT THE WINDOW)
After Linus puts
his niece down for a nap,
he and I are alone.
Finally.
I am sweating jittery nervous.
I ask rapid-fire questions.
I put him on the stand.
| “Do you think I’m pretty?” | “Oh yeah,” Linus says, low and slow. |
| “Was I before I lost weight?” | “Uh-huh.” |
| “But you— | |
| How come— | |
| How come you never— | |
| Never once | |
| took my clothes off?” | “Huh?” |
| “Did you think I was fat?” | “No.” |
| “Ugly?” | “No.” |
| “Then what?” | “I—” he stammers. “Marcie, I— I love you.” |
Knowing that
Linus loves me
changes everything.
Except
what I have done.
“I never once
took off your clothes,”
Linus says,
sliding closer,
wiping tears
from my cheeks,
“because
I didn’t want
to treat you
like my brothers would.”
“So
you’re
not
gay?”
“I get a boner every time we French-kiss.”
“I was so lonely,”
I tell Linus.
“I hadn’t made any friends
all summer, because