Secondhand Purses (9 page)

“If I didn’t know any better, Vic, I’d think you wanted me in this position for real.”

“You… you… oh, my God…” I sputtered, not able to form a coherent sentence.

“Hey, Nick, you back there?” Nick’s friend Joey was in front of Nonna’s house.

Nick pulled back a bit, still staring in my eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out.”

He pushed up on his arm, and tilted his head as he looked at me.

“You are just so damn adorable.” He lowered himself down quickly and kissed me on the nose, then pushed up to standing.

“See you here tomorrow? Same place?”

I managed to nod and was rewarded with his beautiful smile.

He turned and ran as I just lay there in the grass, still nodding, replaying every moment so that I would never forget it.

Holy crap.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Three months flew by. Three amazing, wonderful months filled with meetings to the left of Nonna’s house. That was our place. I still couldn’t believe we had an ‘our place’. That sounded like something that might be real.

We usually sat there, just talking about everything and nothing all at once. Sometimes he put his arm around me. He’s kissed me on the cheek, on my forehead. Everywhere but my lips. Yeah. That was getting more than a little obnoxious. I just hoped that this would all change today. Today was a special day. Today was going to be epic.

Today was Nick’s birthday, and Nonna and I had been working on a surprise for him. I’d seen this beautiful Italian Rum Cake on the Food Network, and wanted to give it a shot. When I told Nonna, she pulled out her recipe box and flipped through it until she whipped out a well-worn card with gusto. We had decided that, due to being underage, we would be using a rum flavoring and not real rum. Also, I knew that Nick hated almonds, but loved pecans, so we were going to gently press crushed pecans on the side of the cake. I was so excited about this, that I could barely sleep the night before as I was imagining the chocolate cream filling blending with the vanilla cake and rum flavoring.

It was Saturday, so I didn’t have to bother with faking my way through the school day. Thank God. I had been so distracted that I almost gave the ingredient measurements as an answer when I had to recite the quadratic equation in algebra class.

We’d told Nick to meet us at one o’clock. I looked at my phone. It was already nine. I needed to get moving, because this was going to be a fussy cake to make. I still had to wrap his present from me. I mean, I knew that the cake was kind of a present, but I wanted to give him something from me. We both really liked Matchbox 20 and Rob Thomas, so I’d gotten him the …
Something to Be
album that came out earlier in the year. We’d shared headphones and sang loudly and badly to “
This is How a Heart Breaks”
more than once. A weird song to be ‘our song’, but whatever.

I opened up the CD and took out the insert to find the lyrics for ‘our song’. Grabbing a pen, I tapped it on my lips for a few moments. Here was my chance. This was my opportunity to put it all on the line. This was more than a friendship to me. Even though I didn’t have a title of girlfriend, he was pretty much my first boyfriend.

“
Here’s hoping I never know how a heart breaks. Love you.”

I slid the insert back in with the cover facing out, and wrapped it quickly before I could get cold feet.

I was letting myself in Nonna’s house an hour later, slipped off my shoes at the front door, and I walked straight back to the kitchen.

“You ready to start?” She smiled at me, tying the knot on the back of her apron.

“Oh my gosh, I’ve been ready since we came up with this idea.” I went to the pantry and pulled my apron off of the hook. I’d hated that ruffly polka dotted thing when I’d first started coming over to bake with Nonna, but I couldn’t lie, I freaking loved that thing, now.

For an hour we mixed, measured, talked and laughed. She had really become a grandmother to me. Mine lived in Colorado, so I only saw them once a year. We had bought my dad’s parents a web camera and microphone for their computer so that we could talk with them and see them at the same time. But they really didn’t understand how it worked, so usually we got a visual of their forehead as the leaned forward to see us better. We tried to explain to them that they needed to look at the camera and not at the computer screen. It was a total fail trying to drag them kicking and screaming into this century. Oh well. I was really glad we’d moved to Providence. I know it took me a while to find my people, but now that I had, I had never been happier.

While the cake baked, we sat and drank hot chocolate with peppermint extract. I didn’t care what time of year it was, that was my favorite drink in the universe.

***

“Hey, anyone here? Something smells really great.” Nick ambled through the door, looking around for us, his smile growing when he spotted us standing in front of the kitchen table.

“Happy Birthday!” We spoke in unison, and stepped aside for him to see our masterpiece.

“Wow, is that for me?” His eyes grew as he took in his masterpiece. He took out his cell phone and took a picture of the cake. He inspected his photo, nodded, flipped the phone closed and put it in his back pocket.

He turned to me, and cocked his head while looking at me.

“Vic, you have a little, something… on your face.” He stepped forward and reached for my cheek.

Oh. My. God. Did the temperature just rise, like, a million degrees? His thumb gently swiped at my cheek and then he licked his thumb. Eek.

“Mmmm, frosting. My favorite.” Was it just me or did his voice just deepen? Like, a lot?

“Well, there’s more where that came from.” Smooth, Vic.

I heard a snort from behind me, and saw Nonna walking away, shaking her head trying to figure out how to understand braindead teenagers. Or something like that.

A knife was presented and with all sorts of ceremony, Nick handed out slices of his cake and we sat and ate in a quiet companionable silence. He didn’t say much, but the moans of happiness as he took bites of cake were all I needed to hear.

I was lost in my head for a bit, enjoying the moment too much when the clang of a fork on the plate had me jump nearly out of my skin. I felt my hand being pulled away from my body and looked down to see that Nick was somewhat forcibly walking me outside to our place.

I reached back and grabbed the present out of my purse and followed him.

I shyly held the poorly wrapped package out to him in front of me when we got to the side of the house.

“Happy birthday, Nick.”

“You got me something? Like, a real present? I mean, I loved the cake, don’t get me wrong, but a
real
present, too?” He was all but jumping up and down like a kid in a candy store. Memo to self, he liked gifts.

“Yeah, I mean, it’s your birthday. It’s not that much. I just, I don’t know, I guess I just wanted you to have something extra. From me.” Ugh. I was totally ready to grab that damned CD with the damned note I wrote in it and run as fast as I could.

“Holy shit! The Rob Thomas CD? I don’t have this yet. Thank you so much, Vic!”

Nick grabbed me in a quick hug and then released as he started to investigate his new CD. When he started to open it and pull the cover insert out, I panicked.

“No, please don’t...” I reached for the CD, but he just jumped back and held it out of my reach while looking at me like I was crazy. Crap.

I started taking short steps backwards, distancing myself from the rejection I figured was on its way. He stopped flipping through the insert and his eyes widened as he read what I had written. Time stopped. I was pretty sure he wasn’t even breathing.

Not.

A.

Word.

My heart sank. I had just blown it. Now, not only did I not have a chance with him as my boyfriend, I figured I had just thrown our friendship in the trash, too.

I turned to walk away. I couldn’t even look at him, because I didn’t want to see whatever was going to be in his eyes. I’d rather just remember today before he opened up the CD case.

Before I could take another breath I felt his hand on my arm. It took a second to register what was happening as he turned me around, to face him. I looked down at his right hand on my left arm, the warmth slowly filling me.

I looked up at him as he reached he left hand up and cupped my cheek.

We stood that way for a moment, with me leaning my face into his hand and staring into his eyes.

Slowly, his head lowered to me. It felt as if it took him an hour to get to me, but I stood. I waited. I didn’t want to make a wrong move, to have the wrong intention. I didn’t want to kill what was turning into the most perfect moment I had ever experienced.

I felt his breath on my lips. My eyes automatically drifted shut, fluttering in a moment of indecision of whether or not I wanted to see my first kiss as it occurred.

The lightest brush on my lips, softer than a whisper and slightly more than a promise. I felt a moment of disappointment as his lips pulled away. I started to step back, only to have his right hand leave my arm and tangle through my hair, pulling me close to him as he pressed his lips more firmly against mine.

Exhale.

Inhale.

I felt the tip of his tongue run between my lips. My heart was pounding out some crazy rhythm. I could have been having a heart attack. Who knew? Didn’t care.

He pulled back slowly, his eyes shifting back and forth as he stared into mine.

He leaned forward, putting his lips right next to my ear. I shivered as I heard and felt his whisper.

“Me, too.”

***

I was pretty sure that my feet never actually touched the ground on my way home. It felt cliché. It felt girly as all hell. I was completely fine with that.

I walked through the front door, fully absorbed in my own little world. Closing the door, I did a few quick spins, my arms outstretched in the air as I celebrated the most amazing, awesome, wonderful moment of my life.

“Mom… Mom… oh my God, you’ll never believe what happened.” I hadn’t stopped spinning as I called to her.

“Mom?”

“Sweetie, we’re right here.”

My spinning came to an abrupt stop and I teetered, catching myself before falling over.

“Whoa, head rush.” I shook my head out a little to get the dizziness to pass a little quicker.

I turned to look at them, and my giddiness started to take over as I walked over.

“Victoria, why don’t you sit for a second?” Dad gestured over to the couch across from where they were sitting.

“Wait, am I in trouble? Did I do something?” I was not in love with this buzz kill they were laying down on my best day ever.

“No, no baby girl. Nothing wrong.”

Uh-huh. So that was one ‘Victoria’, one ‘baby girl’ and a ‘sweetie’. Something was up.

Mom cleared her throat and gave my dad a look, while tilting her head toward me.

“So, Vic. You know when I was away on a business trip last month?”

Was he? I honestly didn’t notice that he was gone. That was pretty bad, right? I could really be a crappy daughter at times. I seriously had no idea he’d been MIA.

“Uh, sure. Okay.”

“Well, sweetie, I’d been meeting some guys for a morning show in Atlanta.”

“I don’t get it. Why would you be meeting with someone in Atlanta?”

“Atlanta is a much bigger market than Providence. This would be such a huge experience for us all. The money is going to be great, and it’s really an incredible career move. Today I was offered the role of morning show host, and I accepted. I start in three weeks.”

“No. No, absolutely not. Not now. Why now? Why would you do this to me now?”

“Honey, we aren’t doing anything
to
you. We’re doing this
for
you. Think of this as a great opportunity. We’ll have a chance to reinvent ourselves again.” That was from mom.

“I don’t
want
to reinvent myself. I’m finally happy in one of our five million freaking homes. I like this version of me. I won’t go. You can’t make me go.” Tears were streaming down my cheeks.

“Vic, you know that you can’t stay behind.”

“I can stay with Nonna. You can pay her to keep me. I can finish school here. Please, Mom. Please, Daddy. Don’t. Please just…don’t.”

Sobs racked my body.

“We’re going as a family. No man left behind.”

But…

“No arguments, this is an exciting day for your father. I would have expected you to be excited for him. Instead you had to ruin this news.”

But…

“Dee, that’s harsh. She’s made friends this time. You knew this was going to be hard. Vicki, you wanted to tell us something. What was
your
exciting news?”

A loud sob ripped from my chest as I felt my world tear in two.

“Nick just kissed me. I just got my first kiss.” The words were barely audible through my tears.

With that, I ran upstairs and left the shattered remnants of my best day ever on the floor at the feet of my shocked parents.

Chapter 9

I woke up with a heavy weight in my chest. It was so hard to breathe. Why was it so hard to breathe? Oh, I remembered.

The day was here. I’d been dreading today. You have thought with us moving every few years I would be used to it by now. But the fact of the matter was, I had finally made friends. This was the first place that I felt like I had a reason to stay. We’d been here for three years. Sure, I’d only met these awesome, crazy people, like, ten months ago. It didn’t matter. This had become my family. They were
my
awesome, crazy people. And now I had to say goodbye.