My Best Friend, Maybe Page 12
“Have fun,” she says and then she disappears into the multilingual crowd.
Sam sighs and picks up the calamari dish, spooning a few more breaded rings onto my plate before helping himself. I wonder why he did that. I tilt my head at him and he sighs again.
“The thing about Sadie is . . .”
Sam is about to tell me. He’s going to give me the answers that Sadie won’t. He’ll tell me why she needs me and why I’m here and everything she’s been hiding. A few days ago I would have stopped him; I would have said I wanted to hear it from Sadie herself, but now I don’t care. Tomorrow I will be stuck all day with these people again and Sadie will have no chance to explain. We’ll be on a boat. Unable to escape through either wine or running away. It’s time for me to be clued in.
He trails off and stares into the black sea and the black night. His face is serious, the coffee-bean-colored edge of his jaw reflecting the golden lights lining the awning of the restaurant. He squints, concentrating or determining something, and even though he’s squinting his brown eyes look so deep and thoughtful and serious and kind.
And, oh, my gosh, I cannot have a crush on Sam. He’s Sadie’s brother. He thinks I’m a kid.
What would my mother say?
“The thing about my sister is . . .” He pauses again, sighs again. He shakes his head. “I think she’ll have to tell you herself,” he concludes.
I nod, my eyes on my plate out of disappointment or fear that if I look at him my heart will go crazy.
I don’t want to push him to tell her secrets, but I’m not ready to drop it completely. I want to keep him talking about Sadie, and then maybe some clues about whatever-this-is will slip out.
“What’s it like . . . ,” I ask. I think about how to finish it. I think about what he would actually answer. “To be Sadie’s brother?”
Sam flashes me an enormous smile, lighting up the entire cliff. “Really?” he asks.
I squint at him. “Yeah. Why? Is it that different from being Charlie’s brother?”
Sam laughs. “Uh, yeah,” he says.
I roll my eyes at myself. “Obviously. I mean, I know that. But . . . how is it different? To be Sadie’s brother, I mean?”
Sam shakes his head, his smile rotating back and forth. “You know, most people are never comfortable enough to ask us that,” he says. “Me and Charlie. They act like we fit right in with the rest of the family.”
I bite my lip. That wasn’t what I meant. I wasn’t even thinking about how Charlie and Sam look so different from the rest of the Peppers. When I spend enough time with them, I tend to forget. I’m tempted to flush, embarrassed, but I can see that the question somehow made Sam happy. So I smile.
“I mean, it’s just as well,” he’s saying. “I wouldn’t want to be explaining it all the time, you know? I’m black and Haitian and adopted and all of that, but I’m also more than that, you know? But still . . . it can be hard to look . . . to be something that your family isn’t.”
He trails off and I gaze over his shoulder into the Santorini stars, thinking of my own mother and father and little brothers. “Yeah,” I say.
“Still,” he says. Then his hand taps mine on the table. “I’m glad you noticed.”
And we’re smiling at each other.
He thinks you’re just a kid, I remind myself.
But when we walk back to our hotel, he’s standing closer to me than usual even though the sidewalk is empty without the swarms of daytime tourists. We’re silent, like we don’t know what to say now that we’re alone. The night is so dark above us that it’s hard to see anything but the white-marble sidewalk and the lit-up storefronts. I wonder what his life is like. That thing that I’ve been feeling, that thing that separates me from my family and my youth group friends, for Sam that difference is real. It’s obvious. Even if you forget about it after you hang out with him for just a little while, that difference is still there. I bet he feels it every day, as much as I do, more. What’s it like to be black here, on this vacation, in crowds of people who wear different clothes and speak different languages but who are still mostly white? What’s it like to look so different from most of your family? I’ve never thought about it before. Sam is a Pepper, but he doesn’t look like one. Edie and her parents and Sadie and Andrea and her parents, they all look like one family, while Sam and Charlie look like each other. I could look like a Pepper, though. I’m the right color and the right smallness. Sam sticks out—so dark and big and manly. But he’s the one who belongs here. He knows exactly who he is in this crowd and where he’s supposed to be.
And he’s the one with the answers; he knows why I’m here.
I’m looking at him while I’m thinking this. His dimples have disappeared in favor of squints and he’s swaying a little while he walks, his elbow bumping against my shoulder.
I don’t know if it’s the wine or the silence but I want to ask if he knows how to be a human bully-shield.
He bumps me again as we enter the gate for our hotel’s set of stairs, and I realize that he’s also had a lot of wine to night.
When we get to my door I wave and say, “Thank you for dinner.” It feels weird and awkward considering how he protected me today, how the conversation flowered over our meal. But he also protected Sadie today, and Rose. Sam smiles at everyone like that, talks to everyone like that. I can’t let myself think it’s anything more. That would be wrong to so many people. Mark. Sadie. Mom. Me.
He turns to go but then he’s back. He puts his palm on my arm, directly below where my pink sleeve cuts off. His dark fingers wrap around my bicep and I love how they look there, in contrast to my own skin. But I can’t think that. I can’t think anything.
“I’m really glad you’re back, Coley. You’re good for my sister,” he says.
He holds my arm tight and he looks right into my eyes, and his are so deep and open that if I look at them too long, I’ll fall in.
I turn away and then he walks down the stairs and he’s gone for now and thank God, because I’m crying. Because I miss Sadie. I miss my family. I miss Mark. Being broken up doesn’t mean I stopped loving him, and being snickered at for an entire week won’t make me stop loving her. Feeling separate and different won’t mean I don’t love my family either. Huge forces might disappear from my life forever, but they won’t disappear from my heart, which means I need to make it grow and stretch to fit more people. And that’s hard work.
Mark and I are in a pool. Some pool suspended somewhere in the universe.
The edges of my vision are flimsy.
I’m leaning against a wall, my feet on the smooth tile floor, my shoulder blades resting on the scratchy concrete. And he’s several feet away, walking toward me quickly but not getting any closer.
I’m wearing a bikini, white with red and pink cherries printed all over it like Sadie’s bedspread. It has ruffles in the angles that slash across my chest. The water laps at my breasts, the blue sagging between them and reflecting the dark freckles that dot the skin below my collarbone. My hair floats in the water in every direction, tickling my bare shoulders.
Mark moves toward me. I can’t tell what he’s wearing because all that I can see above the blue of the water is the expanse of his shoulders, the plane of his chest, the bump of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, nervous, looking right at me.
Suddenly he’s here, pressing into me, bracing my body against the wall of the pool, tilting my head back so he can kiss me, and running his hands down the length of my front. He grazes my stomach, my hips. I kiss him, and in my brain I follow the tracks of his hands, no longer feeling the water or the wall or the sun on my head, not feeling anything but the way he’s finally touching me. My face gets hot as his hands move faster. Then he yanks at the top of my suit and it comes off in his hand and—poof—disappears. I stand there topless and watch him look at me, my breasts floating in the airlike water.
“We can’t do this,” he says.
I jolt upright, sucking in oxygen a
nd whipping my head around to get my bearings. My face is burning hot but other than that nothing is like in the dream. I’m in my cave. In bed. I’m still wearing my cutoffs and T-shirt. And Mark is not my boyfriend. I say that out loud. “Mark is not my boyfriend.”
It was so real, so vivid, that it seems impossible that he’s not. Not mine, anymore.
I lie back, pull the extra pillow over my face, and try not to think about what my church or my mom might call that dream.
How can I still be having dreams like this?
I’ve never told anyone about them, for obvious reasons, but I’ve wondered. Is this normal? Is this wrong? In all of our purity workshops, even in the sex ed classes at school, they always talked about boys having dreams like this and how that was perfectly natural, blah blah blah. But no one ever said anything about girls. And it’s not a question I can ask.
I turn over, trying at once to erase the dream from my memory and catch the last wisps of it, to hold them against my body before they disappear.
I don’t know how I’m even able to dream like this. How is it that I have no idea what it feels like to have a half-naked body pressed against mine, and yet my brain makes it happen in my sleep?
And why am I still dreaming about Mark?
When the whole pool has gone away, vanished out of my window into the Santorini night so that I can remember only that I had a sex dream—the cherry bikini and Mark’s face reflected in the water, but none of the elusive details about what it felt like—I roll out of bed to change into my pajamas and brush my teeth. The taste of wine coats my tongue and the roof of my mouth in an acidic film. I wonder where that taste was during the dream.
I’m too riled up to go back to sleep, so I flip on the TV. Instead of some Greek soap opera or game show, it’s a menu like on a tablet. One of the items says something about free Wi-Fi. Then I see, for the first time, the keyboard propped up on the table below it. It’s not only a TV, it’s a computer.
I’ll check my e-mail and maybe play around on Facebook until I’m tired.
The nighttime sounds and the salty air waft through the open window about a foot to my left as my fingers fly across the keys. It feels weird to be doing something normal in such an exotic place.
I see his name in my inbox right away. Even though it’s at the bottom of the screen, buried under a pile of junk and check-ins from my mom. I hesitate for a second before clicking on it, the mouse vibrating over the a in “Mark.” It says he sent it the day we left. I must have barely missed it.
I’m so sorry. I was unfair and jealous and it’s all my fault. But I’ve prayed about it and I realized that I was wrong. You need to do what you need to do, but that doesn’t mean we have to break up, right, Colette? I’ll miss you so much in Costa Rica. I’ll think about your smile and your laugh and your kindness every day and I’ll whisper how much I love you before I go to sleep each night in case the wind can carry it the 6,142 miles to Santorini. I can’t wait to see you when you get back. Love, Mark
I shake my hazy head. I’m barely able to see the words, let alone understand them. Does Mark think we’re still . . . ? Didn’t he say that . . . ? With the way I’ve been missing him, why am I not happier about this?
Bing! My chat window opens up.
Louisa: Are you really there? Is it really you?
Me: It’s really me.
I type. I ignore the confusing message. The breakup that wasn’t. The promises that I’ve been breaking and he’s been making. The way I’ve yearned for him and missed him and mourned losing him, and now I miss the missing.
Louisa: How is it? How’s Sadie??
Me: Weird.
A few silent moments go by so I open the first of the three Mom-mails. She sent it right as we were landing in Santorini.
Dear Colette, I was hoping to hear from you by now. Please let me know you’re safe. I’m worried about you and so is your father. Remember: Ephesians 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Love, Mom
I bite my lip. Talk about an international guilt trip.
Louisa: Weird how? Weird mean?
Me: No, not really. There’s this other girl here who is really mean. And Sadie is kinda using me to . . . block it? To shield her?
I don’t know how to explain it to Louisa. I don’t know how to explain the cliffs or the sea, or how fun it is to be with Sadie but how small she can make me feel, or how I miss Mark and also wish he would disappear. Instead, I click on the next e-mail. Mom sent it this morning, after she knew I was safe and all, so I’m holding out hope that there will be a layer of forgiveness, something that shows she’ll still be talking to me (and Dad) when I get back.
Dear Colette, I wanted you to know that I just purchased tickets for us to see Peter’s play. He is talking constantly about his solo. I know that you had shown interest in attending. I have purchased three tickets, one for the Friday night performance and two for the one on Saturday night (so that Peter will have someone there each night). You may attend with your father or with me. Please let me know which of us you would prefer as your chaperone on Saturday night, August 18. Also, perhaps you’d like to meditate on this verse in your prayers today: John 14:23-24 “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.’ ” Love, Mom.
I don’t even know what that Bible verse means. And does all of that chaperone talk mean I’m grounded? Why can’t she say that? Why can’t she use her own words? How am I supposed to be honest with her when she’s hiding behind Bible verses?
But beneath the anger, I feel stupid. If I took my twelve years of weekly Bible study more seriously, I would know these verses well enough to know what she means by now. I should know exactly what I’m doing wrong.
Louisa: That’s messed up.
Louisa: So, how are you acting?
What does that mean?
Me: Huh?
She doesn’t answer right away and my brain scrambles for something else to say. I want to keep talking to her; it feels so good to talk to someone who I know is my friend. But I don’t feel like thinking about Sadie anymore. Or Mark.
What I want to talk about is Sam: how nice he’s being, the jokes he’s telling, how he stared into my eyes last night. I shouldn’t even think about that stuff. Turns out, I still have a boyfriend. A boyfriend who won’t touch me.
Louisa: Okay, don’t be mad. But I mean, like, be yourself, you know? Like Fun Colette. The way you are with me.
Fun Colette. Am I Fun Colette?
Me: What time is it there? What are you doing awake?
Louisa: Um, it’s 8:30. Of course I’m awake. :-)
Louisa: I’m studying Japanese. Ugh. :-/ I have to leave in two and a half weeks.
I click on the final Mom-mail. She sent it a few hours ago, when she got home from swim practice with the boys, I guess.
Dear Colette, I hope that you are missing us by now as we are surely missing you. Yes, you would have been in Costa Rica this week anyway, but I believe we are all missing you more because we are not sure how your decision making and moral compass have led you so astray. If you are missing us, please call. We will attempt to help you fix the mistakes you have made. For today’s prayer, think of this: Galatians 5:19 “When you follow the desires of a sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures.”
My cheeks burn. With embarrassment, anger, humiliation, exposure. It’s like she can read my mind even across the sea. How does she know my legs turned to jelly when Sam whispered on my neck today? How does she know I was naked in my dream with Mark? Does she know I’ve been having sex dreams since, like, eighth grade? And if she does, why didn’t she talk to me about it?
Mortified, I turn away from the computer and take a deep breath. Enough of this weirdness. I have another roug
h day tomorrow.
I have a boyfriend, again. My mom is guilt-tripping me. I’m scared of my sex dreams. I’m worried about disappointing an entire list of people. I’m afraid of Sadie.
I’m totally back to being Miss Perfect, Miss Grecian Perfect.
I whip back to shut the computer down and a message from Louisa floats in the corner.
Louisa: Don’t be mad, C. I just mean, have fun, you know?
Louisa: Do you think I can not go to Japan, though? The way you just didn’t go to Costa Rica? Can I just skip it?
Louisa: Guess not. Anyway, I gotta go. Have a great day in Santorini!
Sorry, Louisa. I didn’t change. You probably won’t either.
Ω
“Do you want to play the milk-bottle game?” I asked.
Sadie and I were wandering the boardwalk after dinner. We were allowed to do that on our own that last summer, when we were thirteen. Every night I’d been trying to knock over all the milk bottles at the one game booth and win the stuffed frog. Before I was a swimmer exclusively, I was the pitcher on my little-girl soft ball team. Some of the skills must have stuck around because when I launched that softball at those milk bottles they all clanked and tipped back and forth, and all but one actually fell on the floor. My dad gave us five dollars to spend each night and if we didn’t spend it all, we had to give it back to him. So far all of my money had gone to trying to rocket those milk bottles off the stand. I was determined to get that frog before our beach week was over.
“Nah,” Sadie said. She looked around at the beach storefronts and the whizzing rides and beeping games. The lights of the boardwalk reflected off her so-blond hair. “Sorry, Coley, I’m getting a little bored with that.” She blinked her mascaraed eyelashes. She and my mom had gotten into this annoying habit of “getting ready for dinner” together. I was invited to join in, sometimes, but I found the whole thing even more torturous than watching cartoons with seven-year-old Adam and Peter.