The Girl Who Invented Romance (7 page)

In sociology, Faith’s eyes were fastened on Angie.

Angie’s eyes were fastened on his desk, where he kept putting things he could stare at. First his pen, then his book, then a paper clip, then four quarters he stacked and
restacked, as if playing a single person’s shell game. His cheeks were flushed, and against his olive skin, the ruddy color was unexpected and beautiful.

I convinced myself, against a lot of previous evidence, that Angie was in love and, furthermore, in love with Faith, but too shy to glance at her under the stress of powerful emotion.

“All right, class,” piped Ms. Simms. “Pass in your quizzes.”

Each of us handed the homework down the row to the person in front, who would stack the papers and hand them to the left, until the front left desk had acquired all the papers and handed them neatly to Ms. Simms.

Fatal.

Honey sits two seats in front of me. When she covered her quiz with mine, she glanced down at what I had written. Staring into my pages, she yelled, “Listen! Listen, you guys!” She was laughing so hard, she had to whack the top of her desk with her palm. “You will never in a million years guess what Kelly did her quiz on!” She turned in her seat to laugh at me, taking the opportunity to cast her emerald green eyes over Jeep and Will and Angie. Last year her eyes were plain old hazel but she got tinted contacts and now her eyes are truly remarkable. To look at Honey is to be dazzled.

“What?” said Jeep, leaning way over his desk to catch a glimpse of my topic.

The entire rest of the class imitated him, leaning way over their desks too. Faith frowned at me, with no idea
what was coming. We’d talked so much about Angie that I had forgotten to share my quizzes with her.

Naturally Honey adored having so many fine people lean her way. “Romance,” she said in a low sexy voice. “Kelly wrote not one but two tests for us to take to see if we’re romantic.” She pointed a long thin mocking finger at me. Every eye in class followed the tip of her finger and focused on me.

“I don’t think you took this assignment seriously, Kelly,” said Ms. Simms. “I will be distressed if you simply imitated some foolish nonsense out of
Cosmopolitan
.”

“Kelly is serious,” said Honey. “She takes romance very seriously.” Honey paused for drama. She’s as good as Wendy. “Kelly is always studying those of us who possess romance.”

I could not even duck my head and let my hair waterfall over my face. I had to sit there laughing and pretending to join in the fun. I would be lucky if I kept from crying.

“That’s cool,” said Jeep. “Let’s take the romance quizzes first.”

There was nowhere safe to look. Ahead of me was Honey’s pointing finger. To my left was Will. To my right, Wendy. I picked out a space and fixed my eyes on the blankness as if behind the thin air stood God or my guardian angel.
Rescue me
, I said.
Don’t let this be happening
.

“Actually this will be rather interesting,” said Ms. Simms, glancing through my quizzes. “We’ll find out whether boys and girls agree that certain words signal romance.”

“We have most of the period left, Ms. Simms,” said Jeep in a pleasant cooperative voice. “Why don’t I just run down to the office, run off twenty copies of each, and we’ll take the quizzes right now?”

“Good idea,” said another boy. “I’m in a real rush to know if I’m romantic or not.”

“You’re not,” the boys assured him. “You’re a loser.”

“You could take lessons from me if you want,” Angie offered generously.

“You? Angie, the girls never go out with you twice. It’d have to be a quick lesson.”

“You mean I never go out with a girl twice,” Angie corrected. “I’ve got high standards.”

I risked a glance at Faith. But she was not upset. She was wreathed in smiles. She knew she met those high standards.

Jeep stood up and took the quizzes from an unprotesting Ms. Simms. He was back in no time to pass the papers out. He was already laughing. “Wait till you read this, guys,” he warned everybody.

“Take this seriously,” cautioned Ms. Simms.

Everybody laughed raucously.

I wondered if a person could blush to death. Perhaps my death certificate would read,
Overheating from blushing caused her central nervous system to—

“Because,” said Ms. Simms, and her squeaky voice suddenly dropped an octave into normalcy, “to love and to be loved are the greatest joys on earth.”

There was complete silence.

It was a truth. More than we’d ever learn in science or math or history.

But who can tolerate the truth? Especially in front of her friends?

People wrote their names obediently at the top of their quiz sheets. They began reading the directions. Laughter began to riffle over the room, little brooks of giggles becoming torrents.

“Whipped cream?” said Angie. “
Whipped cream
, Kelly?”

I’ll go live with Grandma, I thought. I’ll never set foot in Cummington again.

“Chocolate, kitten, dancing, violin,” read Honey. “Does anybody think that Kelly is just a little bit deprived?”

“Boots,” read Kenny. “I don’t see my other romantic favorites here, Kelly. Where is my leather? My whips?”

“Class!” cried Ms. Simms in her tiny pitiful scream. Brief silence settled. But the laughter had not vanished, just been muffled. “You’re all envious of Kelly,” said Ms. Simms. “She has sufficient character to attack the important parts of life. What you care about and dream about and struggle toward. Match her bravery with your honesty.”

For a minute I thought she had saved me. I was able to breathe in without that jagged edge that is the start of tears. I let go of my pencil a little and released the cramps forming in my hand.

And Will said, “Crap.” The single syllable was fierce and angry. “Flowers? Sparkles? Velvet? None of that has anything
to do with love. This is stupid, Kelly. Love is promises. Generosity. Sharing. Forgiveness. Listening. Kindness. Love is important.” Will looked at me with contempt. “Every single thing you’ve listed is shallow and stupid.”

Of all people to say this—Will. He was right. The quiz was shallow and I was shallow. After all, I was the one with the intimacy quotient of forty-seven.

Of all people, it was Wendy who stepped up to the plate to save me. “Will,” she said, “Kelly did not write a quiz on love. She wrote a quiz on romance. What’s so bad about romance? Romance is the backdrop to love. Don’t be so high and mighty. If you’d relax a little, you might have romance in your life too, instead of sweatpants and sneaker laces.”

Will looked uncomfortable. “I guess I see what you mean,” he said finally.

“Of course you do,” said Wendy. “Romance is soft music and sleek cars. Holding hands and pretty dresses. Love is none of those. Love is profound and vast, not mere objects and textures. But romance is half the fun, Will.”

For a moment, the entire class was caught up in Wendy’s voice. We shared faraway looks and the dream was almost visible.
Let me have love
.

“That’s interesting from you, Wendy,” said Honey. “So let’s see, Parker’s car—the one he has to borrow one day a week—isn’t sleek. And Jeep’s car—the one he owns—is sleek. I guess you and Jeep were all romance and no love, huh, Wendy?”

Jeep didn’t blush and fade like me. He simply ceased to breathe or be there.

Half the class attacked Honey for Jeep’s sake. Ms. Simms had to yell for quiet but quiet never came. Even when the final bell rang, we were still saying ugly things and taking sides and stabbing each other.

What is this thing called love, I wondered, that turned this dull group into an emotional mob?

I got up last, wanting to see nobody, talk to nobody, be reminded of nobody. Wanting to be dead, actually, but there was an important test next class that I couldn’t skip.

Will held the door for me.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, stumbling through it, hating him for being there.

“Romantic of me, wasn’t it?” he said sarcastically. As if doing romantic things were bad. He faked a smile and I had to tell him what his smile was like. “You’ve got a smile like an attack dog,” I said.

We stood a moment staring at each other. I was so drained, I could hardly raise my chin, and looking up at the basketball player who was a star because of his inches required considerable raising of the chin.

“But you,” he said softly, “have the smile of a pixie.”

A
pixie?

Now, what, exactly, is a pixie?

I think of a feathery elf with button features who is fluttering on gauze wings among magic toadstools.

At home I stared at myself in the hall mirror. The day’s blush had finally faded and I could see my features again. I do have a perky nose and a small chin. Is a pixie smile a good thing? Was Will being sarcastic when he held the door for me or did I read that into his voice because I was so upset?

“I don’t want to wonder!” I cried aloud. “I want something to happen!”

I sagged into a chair. In the next room, my parents were
making supper, Mom chopping onions for spaghetti sauce while Dad minced garlic. He was teasing her.

There is romance, I reminded myself. I’m a witness.

I flung myself onto the sofa and began to cry and Parker came in.

That’s the way it is with families and classrooms. No privacy. Always somebody watching.

“What’s the matter?” said Park. He didn’t come sit next to me or hug me. We aren’t physically close, Parker and I. He did stand in the door, though, and wait patiently for an answer.

I shrugged.

“Has to be something,” he said. “Maybe I can help.”

The last thing I would ever do was admit what had happened in sociology. Or describe my romance game or Will or my feelings about life in general. Especially to Park, who didn’t know any more than the rest of us did why Wendy liked him. “I was thinking of Mother and Daddy,” I lied. “How romantic they are. Did you see the little heart bookmark?”

“Romantic?” said Park irritably. “Garbage. There’s nothing romantic about that or about them either.”

“Nothing romantic?” I repeated.

“He doesn’t bring those presents because it’s romantic. Don’t you know anything, Kelly? He’s just spreading oil on the waters.”

“What waters?”

“Of their marriage. It’s such a dumb marriage. I’m never going to have a fake marriage like theirs.”

I was outraged. “A fake?” I sputtered. “Mother and Daddy?”

“They’ve been married eighteen years and any fool can tell Dad adores Mom, but she’s so insecure, he has to go through this endless charade of proving himself week after week, year after year, gift after gift, bookmark after bookmark, flower after flower.”

I could not think of my own mother as insecure. Insecure is a word for kids. Mothers are solid.

“And all because of Ellen, who could be dead now for all we know.”

“Ellen?”
I said. “Dad’s high school girlfriend?”

We’d heard all about Ellen. She shared eight years of Daddy’s life. His first car. His first trip to Europe. His first plane ride. His first weekend in New York. His first time on the West Coast. All with Ellen. Right after college, Ellen jilted Dad. Just up and said good-bye. Have you met somebody else? my father said. No, replied Ellen, I just don’t want to spend my life with you.

Dad was shattered for about a month but then he met Mother and the romance of the century began between them.

“What could Ellen have to do with anything?” I said crossly. If Parker was going to make up some cheap story about how Daddy was really having an affair with Ellen on the side, I would kill him.

“Dad and Mom got married when they’d known each other six weeks. Talk about falling in love on the rebound.
Dad had been seeing Ellen for years. She was the first and only girl Dad ever dated. Dad worshiped Ellen. And less than three months later he’s married? Think about it.”

I thought about it. Bewildered, I said, “But, Parker, Mother and Daddy fell in love at first sight.”

Parker spoke to me slowly, forcing himself to be patient. “Kelly, Dad would have married Ellen in a heartbeat. Mother was his second choice. And only because she was there. All this time, Mother has never felt sure that Dad really loves her.”