My Life Next Door (15 page)

I slide into the van, my sneakers crunching into a crumpled pile of magazines, an empty Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup, various Poland Spring and Gatorade bottles, and lots of unidentifiable snack wrappers. Alice and her Bug are evidently still at work.

“A surprise, for me?” I ask, intrigued.

“Well, it’s for me, but you too, kind of. I mean, it’s something I want you to see.”

This sounds a little unnerving. “Is it a body part?” I ask.

Jase rolls his eyes. “No. Jeez. I hope I’d be smoother than that.”

I laugh. “Okay. Just checking. Show me.”

We drive to Maplewood, two towns over, more run-down than Stony Bay. Jase pulls the van into a parking lot with a huge red, white, and blue sign that says “French Bob’s Used Cars.”

“French Bob?”

“Bob unfortunately thinks that adding ‘French’ makes him sound classier.”

“Got it. So, you’d be French Jase?”

“
Oui
,
oui
. Come on. I want you to tell me what you think of her.”

Her?

He takes my hand after we climb out of the car, pulling me into the back lot. There are lots and lots of extremely aged vehicles in various states of disrepair, with big white painted lettering on their windshields. I peer at them, noticing that they all say things like “A STEAL AT $3,999!” or “THEY DON’T MAKE ’EM LIKE THIS ANYMORE” or “PURRS LIKE A TIGER CUB.”

We come to a stop in front of a grayish white car with a huge hood and tiny cockpit. The windshield says “THIS SWEET BABY COULD BE YOURS FOR MERE PENNIES.”

“
Mere pennies
meaning, of course, fifteen hundred bucks,” Jase says. “But isn’t she beautiful?”

I’m no car connoisseur, but his eyes are shining, so I say enthusiastically, “Gorgeous.”

He laughs at me. “I know, not now. But she’s a ’73 Mustang. Picture her with paint instead of primer. Picture her with new seat covers and a leather steering wheel and—”

“Fuzzy dice?” I ask dubiously. “Candy apple–red paint? Leopard-print seat covers?”

Jase shakes his head. “Just who do you think I am today, Samantha? No way. British racing green, of course. And no dice. And, before you ask, no dancing hula girl figurines either.”

“In that case, I love it.”

He grins. “Good. Because I know I can get her working again, and she’s a convertible and I just wanted to make sure you…liked her because…I just wanted to be sure you did.”
He pats the hood, ducking his head slightly. “I’ve been saving for this now for four years. I should put it toward college, I
know,
” he says, as though expecting me to give him a lecture on fiscal responsibility. “But Alice, like,
always
has the Bug these days. Apparently Brad is a lousy driver. And you and I can’t have all our dates on your roof. Besides, this is such a deal.”

My attention has been caught by one thing. “You’ve been saving for a car since you were thirteen?”

“What? You think that’s weird?”

His smile’s so infectious that I’m returning it before I even begin to answer. “I don’t know. I just thought thirteen-year-olds went for the Xbox first.”

“Joel taught me to drive when I was thirteen—in the beach parking lot in the fall. I just got hooked. That’s why I started learning how to fix things on cars…since I couldn’t legally drive ’em yet. You still think I’m nuts, huh? I can tell.”

“In a good way,” I assure him.

“I can live with that. Now come on,
ma chérie,
and let’s pay French Bob.”

Bob agrees to have the Mustang towed to the Garretts’ house by Friday. As we climb back into the van, I ask, “Where are you going to work on her?” Already, I too am referring to this car as if it has a gender.

“I’ll just do it in the driveway. Joel takes the cycle to work these days, so that space will be clear. Besides, there’s no room in the garage until my mom has that yard sale she’s been talking about for five years.”

I can already see my mother, hands on hips, glaring through the window at the disabled car and huffing out an impatient
breath. “A rusty old wreck now! What next? Plastic flamingos?” I squeeze Jase’s knee, and he instantly covers my fingers with his own, giving me his slow, intoxicating smile. I feel a pang, as though I’m handing over a part of myself I’ve never offered before. And I suddenly remember Tracy worrying about getting in too deep with Flip. It’s only been a few weeks and somehow I seem to have gotten far from shore.

Jase’s schedule is as busy as Mom’s. The hardware store, training, some odd jobs fixing things at the bike shop, delivering lumber…One afternoon after lifeguarding, I’m hesitating on our porch, wondering about calling him, when I hear a whistle and he’s walking up our driveway.

He gives my jacket with its epaulets and stupid crested suit the once-over. I’d been so eager to get out of the B&T that I hadn’t bothered to change. “Admiral Samantha, once again.”

“I
know
,” I say. “Lucky you, getting to wear anything you want.” I wave my hand at his faded shorts and his untucked forest green oxford shirt.

“But you still look better than me. When does your mom get home today?”

“Late. She’s at some fund raiser at the Bay Harbor Grille.” I roll my eyes.

“Want to come to my house? You allowed to fraternize off-site?”

I tell him to wait two minutes while I ditch the uniform.

When we get to the Garretts’, it is, as usual, a hive of activity. Mrs. Garrett’s breast-feeding Patsy at the kitchen table, quizzing Harry on the names of various rope knots for
sailing camp. Duff’s on the computer. George, shirtless, is eating chocolate chip cookies, dreamily dipping them in milk and leafing through
National Geographic Kids
. Alice and Andy are in an intense discussion over by the sink.

“How do I get him to do it? It’s just killing me. I’m gonna die.” Andy scrunches her eyes shut.

“What are you dying of, dear?” Mrs. Garrett asks. “I missed it.”

“Kyle Comstock still hasn’t kissed me. It’s killing me.”

“It shouldn’t take this long,” Alice observes. “Maybe he’s gay.”

“Alice,” Jase objects. “He’s fourteen. Jesus.”

“What’s gay?” George asks, his mouth full of cookie.

“Gay is like those penguins we read about at Central Park Zoo,” explains Duff, still typing away on the computer. “Remember, sometimes the boy ones mate with other boy ones?”

“Oh. I rem’ber. What’s mate, I forget that part?” responds George, still chewing.

“Try this one,” Alice suggests. She walks up to Jase, shakes back her hair, casts her eyes down, walks her fingers up his chest, and then toys with the buttons of his shirt, swaying slightly toward him. “That one always works.”

“Not on your brother.” Jase backs up, rebuttoning.

“I guess I could try that.” Andy sounds doubtful. “But what if he sticks his tongue in my mouth right away? I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Eeeew,” squeals Harry. “Barf. That’s rank.”

Feeling my face warm, I shift my eyes to Jase. He’s blushing too. But he quirks a little smile at me.

Mrs. Garrett sighs. “I think you should just take this at a slow pace, Andy.”

“Does it feel really gross, or nice?” Andy turns to me. “It’s so hard to imagine, even though I do try. All the time.”

“Samantha and I are going upstairs to, uh, feed the animals.” Jase grabs my hand.

“Is
that
what they call it now?” asks Alice languidly.

“Alice,” Mrs. Garrett begins as we hurry upstairs to the relative quiet of Jase’s room.

“Sorry,” he says, the tips of his ears still pink.

“No problem.” I pull the elastic out of my hair, toss it back, flutter my eyelashes and, reaching out, walk my fingers dramatically up his chest to unbutton his shirt.

“Oh my God,” Jase whispers. “It’s like I’ve just gotta…I can’t help myself…I—” He hooks his index finger into the waistband of my shorts, moving me closer. His lips descend on mine, familiar now, but more and more exciting. In the past few weeks, we’ve spent hours kissing, but only kissing, only touching each other’s faces and backs and waists. Jase, who takes his time.

Not like Charley, who was incapable of meeting my lips without reaching for more, or Michael, whose patented move was to thrust his hands up under my shirt, unclasp my bra, then groan and say, “Why do you do this to me?” Now it’s my hands that slide up under Jase’s shirt, up his chest, while I lower my head to his shoulder and breathe in deeply. All our other kisses have been slow and careful, by the lake, on the roof, potentially not so alone. Now we’re in his bedroom, and
that feels both tempting and wicked. I move my hands to the hem of his shirt, tugging up, while part of me is completely shocked that I’m doing this.

Jase steps backward, looks at me, intent green eyes. Then he raises his arms so I can slip the shirt off.

I do.

I’ve seen him without a shirt. I’ve seen him in a bathing suit. But the only times I got to touch his chest it was dark. Now the afternoon sun slants into the room, which smells earthy and warm with all the plants, quiet except for our breathing.

“Samantha.”

“Mmmm,” I say, trailing my hand over his stomach, feeling the firm muscles tighten.

His hand reaches out. I close my eyes, thinking how embarrassed I’ll be if he stops me. Instead, his fingers close lightly on the hem of my shirt, sliding it up, while the other hand curves around my waist, then moves, touching my cheek, asking a silent question. I nod, and he eases the shirt entirely off.

Then he pulls me close and we’re kissing again, which feels much more intimate when so much of his skin is touching mine. I can feel the thud of his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his breathing. I bury my hands in the waves of his curls and press closer.

The door opens and in comes George. “Mommy said to bring these.”

We move hastily apart to find him extending a plate of chocolate chip cookies, several of which have large bites out of them. George thrusts the plate at us guiltily. “I had to make sure they were still good.” Then, “Hey, you guys have nothing on top!”

“Um, George—” Jase runs his hands through the hair at the back of his head.

“Me neither.” George jabs a finger at his own bare chest. “We match.”

“G-man.” Jase leads him to the door, handing him three cookies. “Buddy. Go back downstairs.” He gives his brother a little shove between his skinny shoulder blades, then shuts the door firmly behind him.

“What’re the chances he won’t mention the no-shirt thing to your mom?” I ask.

“Slim.” Jase leans back against the door, closing his eyes.

“George tells all.” I hastily tug on mine, yanking my arms into the sleeves.

“Let’s just, uh…” Assured Jase is at a loss.

“Feed the animals?” I suggest.

“Right. Yeah. Uh, here.” He crosses to some low drawers under his bed. “I have it all separated by…”

We sort food and dump out water bottles, refilling them, edge straw into cages. After about five minutes I say, “Put this back on now.” I thrust his shirt at him.

“Okay. Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Unbelievably distracted by my body, Samantha?”

“Yes.”

He laughs. “Good. We’re on the same page, then.” There’s a pause. Then he says, “I said that wrong. Like it was all about how you look, and that’s not it. It’s just that you’re so different than I thought you were.”

“Than you thought I was, when?”

“When I saw you. Sitting on your roof. For years.”

“You saw me. For years?” I feel myself flush again. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“For years. Course I didn’t tell you. I knew you watched us. Couldn’t figure out why you didn’t just come over. I thought…maybe you were shy…or a snob…I didn’t know. I didn’t know you then, Sam. Couldn’t help watching back, though.”

“Because I’m just so compelling and fascinating?” I roll my eyes.

“I used to see you, out the kitchen window, during dinner or when I was swimming in the pool at night, wonder what you were thinking. You always looked cool and poised and perfect—but that’s…”

He trails off, ruffling his hair again.

“You’re less…more…I like you better now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I like you here—real and just you and coping with all this insanity—George and Andy and Harry, me, I guess—in that calm way you have. I like who you really are.”

He regards me contemplatively for a long moment, then turns away, carefully fitting the water bottle into the ferret’s cage.

Underneath the flare of pleasure at his words, there’s a niggling prickle of unease. Am I calm? Am I somebody who takes things in stride? Jase is so sure he sees me.

A knock on the door. This time, it’s Duff wanting help with his sailing knots. Then Alice, who is having a CPR test tomorrow and needs a willing victim.

“No way,” Jase says. “Use Brad.”

I think it’s good we have all these interruptions. Because right now I don’t feel the least bit calm, totally unsettled by what happened as we stood there, bare skin to bare skin, with this growing feeling that what happens between us is not on my schedule, in my control. Not me choosing to move away or back off or step apart, but a desire less easily managed. Before, I’ve always felt curious, not…not
compelled
. How much experience has Jase had? He’s a fantastic kisser; but then, he’s good at everything he does, so that’s no guide. The only girlfriend I know about is Shoplifting Lindy, and she certainly seems as though she had no hesitation about taking what she wanted out of life.

When Mrs. Garrett comes up to ask if I want to stay for dinner, I say no, my quiet empty house with its leftovers in Tupperware, somehow, for the first time, a refuge from the steamy silence of Jase’s room.

Chapter Twenty

“Here ya go, Grace. Senior Center Pig Roast. Daughters of St. Damien Shad Fest. Sons of Almighty Michael Feast of the Blessed Shad. You need to go to all of these.”

Clay has a highlighter and the local newspaper. Mom has a third cup of morning coffee.

“Shad festivals?” she says faintly. “I’ve never done those before.”

“You never had a real opponent before, Grace. Yup, all of them. Look here, they’re opening an old boxcar as a diner in Bay Crest. You need to be there.”