Chapter Thirteen
“STOP IT!” SUMMER SQUEALED AS FINN WRENCHED THE SUPER Soaker from her hands.
They’d been chasing each other around the shallow end of the pool for the last fifteen minutes—part water-gun battle, part lame excuse for groping each other’s half-naked bodies.
“You are so dead!” Summer shrieked as Finn pelted water at the small of her back.
Alice figured she’d give Summer another ten minutes to satisfy her flirtation fix, then they’d head back on the road again. She hadn’t wanted to delay their trip any further, but with the van now parked safely in Finn’s driveway, Alice couldn’t exactly use the excuse about not having their bathing suits. Plus, after walking back down that hot dusty road to gas up the Pea Pod, she’d actually been dying for a quick dip.
Alice sidestroked her way to the deep end just as Tiernan sprung off the diving board and did a midair somersault—a double somersault? No. Her legs hit the water with a slap.
“Well?” Tiernan asked when she’d surfaced.
“I’d give it an eight point two,” Alice said. “You were close. Close-ish.” Finn’s swimming pool had cooled them off in more ways than one. Not that Alice ever stayed mad for very long.
She pushed herself off the edge and headed back toward the shallow end, thankfully empty since Summer and Finn’s flirtation had evolved onto land. Finn still held the water gun, but now Summer had the garden hose, and she was merciless. Finn tried to dodge it, zigging and zagging across the lawn, then finally ducking behind the edge of the house to get out of range. Just then a boy on a bike came riding past him into the backyard, right in the line of fire.
“What the—?” The boy tried to veer away from the spray and fell off his bike.
Summer released the nozzle. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Finn said. “It’s just my little brother, Quentin. Say hello to the ladies, Q-Tip.”
“Hello, ladies,” said Quentin.
With his tall, bony body, wire-rimmed glasses, and sardonic smile, Quentin didn’t look anything like Finn. In the bike helmet, the effect was that of a human lollipop. And even though Finn had referred to him as his younger brother, there was something about Quentin’s eyes that made him seem older.
“Where’d the sirens come from?” Quentin asked. He was staring right at Alice.
“What?” asked Finn.
Alice laughed. “Sirens, like in Homer’s Odyssey,” she explained, letting her gaze flicker across Quentin’s before it made its way to Finn. “They sang to the sailors, drawing them in to shore with their voices.”
“And making them shipwreck on the rocks,” Quentin added with a grin.
“Tra-la-la-la!” Tiernan trilled, purposefully off-key. Then she hurled herself into the water like a wounded sailor.
Everyone but Quentin watched Tiernan’s display. His eyes stayed on Alice. Suddenly she could feel the air on every inch of her bare skin, which was a lot, considering how she was just standing there in her bathing suit in knee-deep water with her blobby white thighs totally exposed. She did a quick dolphin dive into the deep end, hoping that the wedgie from her bathing suit had flashed by too quickly for anyone to notice. She swam underwater until her fingertips scraped against the concrete wall at the deep end. When she surfaced, Quentin was gone.
“Well, we should probably get going if we want to make it to Lexington before dark,” Alice announced.
“Fine by me,” Tiernan said.
Summer positioned herself on a float. “Ten more minutes?” she pleaded as Finn dragged her along by the ankles.
Alice was about to rattle off her list of reasons why it was important that they leave Right At This Very Moment when the back door of the house flung open, revealing Quentin—helmet- and glasses-free—wearing nothing but neon-green swim trunks. His floppy brown hair fell in his eyes, and his chest was lean, but muscular. He’d looked skinnier in clothes.
Quentin gave Alice a quick wink, then took off for the pool full tilt, sailing diagonally across the water, arms hugging his knees, heading straight for her. Too shocked to even think to swim away, Alice just stood where she was as Quentin’s cannonball detonated two inches away, soaking her with its enormous splash.
She stared quizzically at Quentin as he surfaced, and Quentin stared right back at her, with a shameless self-satisfied grin. “Y’all are staying for dinner, right?”
“We thank thee, Lord, for happy hearts, for rain and sunny weather. We thank thee, Lord, for this food, and that we are together.”
Alice wasn’t a religious person, but she knew enough to recognize an unholy thought when it hit her. And when Quentin had taken his hand in hers for grace, boy, had it hit her. It was nothing like the feeling she’d had with Phred—his heavy arm weighing on her shoulder like a sandbag. Quentin’s hand seemed to melt into hers in a way that made her whole body tingle.
“And we are also thankful to have you girls here with us tonight,” Quentin’s mother said. Mrs. Oldham was built like a pintsized linebacker—broad shoulders like Finn, huge boobs, thin, almost spindly legs. Her hair was frosted blond, and she wore large gold hoop earrings and a matching gold cross around her neck.
Mr. Oldham was an older, beer-bellied version of Quentin. He smiled kindly at the girls. “Well, with what y’all have been through, somebody ’round here needed to show you some Southern hospitality.”
“Amen to that,” Quentin said, giving Alice’s hand an extra little squeeze. Then grace was officially over and, much to Alice’s distress, Quentin wiggled his hand from hers. Good Lord! Doesn’t anyone at this table have something else to be thankful for?
“Quey-yahn-tin!” Mrs. Oldham’s Kentucky accent was as thick as the barbecue sauce Quentin licked off his fingers. “Use some manners, please. We have ladies around.”
“Sorry, Mama.” Quentin sheepishly wiped his hand on his napkin.
Mr. Oldham laughed. “I think my wife likes havin’ you girls around as much as the boys do, what with bein’ the only female in the house.”
Mrs. Oldham threw her hands up in the air dramatically. “Sometimes I just go out of my mind with all this male energy around.”
You can say that again, Alice thought. Twice since grace, Quentin’s thigh had brushed against hers and it still felt electric.
“I just think y’all should stay here for the night,” Mrs. Oldham continued as Quentin’s knee bumped hers again—accidentally? “I’m sure your mothers wouldn’t want you driving into some strange city after dark.”
“We really need to make some more miles tonight,” Tiernan said apologetically.
Alice shot Tiernan a look. If her leg wasn’t already preoccupied, she might have kicked her. “We could just make it up tomorrow,” Alice quickly added. “I mean, it’s only a hundred miles, right?”
“Whatever.” Tiernan smirked back at her. “Your call, boss.”
“Well, we don’t want to be an imposition,” Alice said to Mrs. Oldham.
“No imposition at all.” Mrs. Oldham smiled. “Guest room’s already got clean sheets.”
After dinner, Alice and Quentin teamed up in a cutthroat game of Monopoly, where they dominated all the other players, capping off their win with a duet of “We’re in the Money.” Then there was that moment in the den while they were all watching TV and Quentin leaned his back against her legs. The only thing that prevented it from being the most perfect night of Alice’s life was having to witness Summer’s reaction when Finn’s girlfriend unexpectedly showed up.
But for once Alice wasn’t obsessing about whether or not everyone else was having a good time. She was having an amazing time.
It was almost midnight when Mrs. Oldham came downstairs to tell them it was time to “get some shuteye.”
Quentin’s mom had gone to a lot of effort to make them comfortable, setting up an air mattress next to the queen-size bed in the guest room, putting out fresh towels and bottles of water. But all Alice could think about was that Mrs. Oldham had whisked her away from Quentin before they’d gotten a chance to say a proper good night.
“So, did you kiss him?” Tiernan asked, plopping onto the air mattress.
“When could I do that?” Alice sighed, letting her body fall back against the frilly white bedspread. “We were never alone.”
“Too bad.” Summer climbed into bed next to her. “He seems really sweet. Unlike his poop-stain of a brother.”
A knock on the door made Alice bolt upright. If Mrs. Oldham had heard them talking about her sons . . . Then Alice saw the note on the floor—a small square of white lined paper, meticulously folded. She sailed across the room and snatched it up, unfolding each layer carefully as her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
“Come on, Alice, spit it out. What does it say?” Tiernan bounced on the air mattress like a little kid.
The note had only three words, but Alice was almost too tongue-tied to say them. “You, me. P-Pod?”
Summer shrieked with delight. “At least someone’s getting some tonight.”
“Shhhh,” Alice reprimanded her, though on the inside she was screaming. She loved everything about the note—the way he’d put “you” and “me” in the same sentence, the way he hadn’t assumed anything by ending “P-Pod” with a question mark.
“You better take one of these.” Tiernan rummaged through her toiletries bag and fished out a condom. “Just in case.”
“Put that thing away, please,” Alice cried.
“Don’t listen to her,” Summer said. “You don’t want to sleep with him on the first date anyway.”
“You guys, I am not having sex with him. I’m not even sure if he likes me.”
“Oh my God.” Tiernan collapsed dramatically, making the air mattress hiss.
“Alice,” Summer said, nodding reassuringly, “he likes you.”
Alice quickly brushed her teeth, dabbed on a layer of strawberry lip gloss, then smoothed her hair with water. If only she’d remembered to put in some gel after swimming, she wouldn’t look like she had a bird’s nest on top of her head. Finally Summer jumped up and helped her pull her hair back in a French twist while Tiernan dug through Alice’s wardrobe for something decent to wear.
“How about this?” Tiernan asked, holding up a plain black tank dress.
“Perfect.” Summer nodded. “Sultry, yet understated.”
Alice slipped on the dress, added her favorite dangly gold earrings, then gave her pits a quick sniff. A quick slather of deodorant and she was out the door.
“Wish me luck,” she whispered while Summer and Tiernan waved and grinned like a couple of proud parents.
Alice padded down the squeaky wooden stairs, her breathing shallow and fast, like she’d just run a marathon. Then she took a deep breath and opened the front door.
The night air felt like a different world—warm, mysterious, sweet.
“Alice.” Out of the dark Quentin whispered her name. She’d heard it a million times a day, every day of her life. But it sounded different coming from his mouth. Better. She could see him now, leaning against the van.
“Here I am,” she said, suddenly feeling shy.
“I can see that,” Quentin replied.
They stared at each other for a few beats in silence.
“So, you want to check out the van?” Alice asked, regretting the question as soon as it came out of her mouth. Could it sound any more like a cheesy pickup line?
“Sure,” Quentin said.
The side door rolled open quietly on its freshly oiled track, and Alice sent Gert a silent thank-you. Quentin climbed in first, stepping over her bathing suit, which had fallen from where she’d hung it to dry and was on the floor, inside out, its tan nylon crotch completely exposed. Alice scrambled in after him and quickly wadded the suit into a ball, tossing it in the sink. She left the door open a few inches, partly for the breeze and partly because the thought of closing it all the way made her nervous.
“So, is it like you expected?” she asked as Quentin looked around.
“Even better,” Quentin said. “Though I try not to have expectations.”
Alice sat down on the bench seat, tucking her bare feet underneath her. “How do you not have expectations? I mean, if you don’t have expectations, how do you ever get what you want?” She hadn’t imagined their conversation would get so deep right off the bat, which, she realized, was also an expectation.
“Well, I know one way to never get what you want is by trying to make it fit into your vision of how it should be.” Quentin sat down next to her, close enough for her to feel his heat against her bare knee.
“You seem to have a lot of big ideas for a high school senior,” Alice said. He was only five months younger than her, but a grade behind.
“Oh, I’m full of big ideas.” Quentin smiled back. Alice stared at him until she felt herself blush. Then Quentin leaned forward to look at the collage taped to the cabinet below the sink. It wasn’t one of their better works, but it was the only one they hadn’t cut apart last night.
“This is cool.” He pointed to a small cutout of her face—the center of a daisy made up of Level3 leaves. “Is that you?”
“When I was twelve.” Alice rolled her eyes.
“You had a lot of artistic talent for a twelve-year-old.”
“I didn’t make it alone. Summer and Tiernan, they’re really the creative ones in the group. But making collages, well . . . it used to be kind of our thing.”
“So were you friends before you became groupies, or were you groupies before you were friends?”
“First of all, we’re not groupies,” Alice corrected him. “Groupies are fanatical, plus they usually sleep with the band.” She’d been alone with Quentin for ten whole seconds and already she’d brought up sex. Smooth. “And, yes, we were friends first. I mean, before.”
“Before what?”
“Before we stopped being friends.”
Quentin looked confused. “So what are you now?”
Alice paused, exhaling through her nose. “The only reason we’re all together is to go see Level3, because we have that history. But back in the real world, we don’t even hang out.”
“Isn’t this the real world?” Quentin asked.
Alice laughed. It certainly didn’t feel like the real world, sitting here in the Pea Pod in the middle of the night with a cute boy.
But Quentin wasn’t letting it go. “Doesn’t it bother you? Hanging out with people who aren’t your friends anymore?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say they aren’t my friends,” Alice said. “I mean, it’s cordial; it’s not a big deal, really.” She turned to face him. “Can we talk about you for a while?”
Quentin nodded. “Well, I’m seventeen, I’m a Virgo, my brother once broke my nose with a baseball bat—supposedly an accident—and that’s why it’s crooked. And in two more weeks, I’m getting the hey-yell out of this backward, godforsaken town to spend a month up north at a summer art program.”
“Where?” Alice asked, her heartbeat swishing in her ears.
“At RISD. Rhode Island School of Design. That’s near Massachusetts, right?”
RISD was in Providence, practically right down the street from Brown. “Mm-hmm.” Alice nodded, trying to act casual. “So, you’re an artist?”
Quentin shrugged. “I try to be. If things go well at the summer program, it’ll help my chances of getting in when I apply to go to school there next year.”
Alice felt a flutter of hope beating its wings inside her chest. What if she was at Brown and Quentin was at RISD? It was almost too good to be true. Wait a minute. It was too good to be true.
“Why are you laughing?” Quentin asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Alice said. “I’m just amused by my own failure to not have expectations.”
They talked like this for hours, until the black sky brightened to cobalt blue, until they were yawning as much as talking. They were both lying on the floor now, the door closed all the way to keep out the chill of the predawn air. Their bodies were millimeters away from each other, but not touching.
“We should probably go back up,” Alice said, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Okay,” Quentin said, turning to face her, his mouth so close she could feel his breath on her chin.
Suddenly Alice’s brain was seized by the list of things she’d messed up today—how she’d forgotten to turn on her cell phone, to get gas for the van, how she hadn’t called her mother back, forgotten to even check whether or not Tiernan had called her mother. Of course, they’d never made it to Lexington.
“How do you not have expectations?” she asked, suddenly jumping back into their old conversation. “If you don’t anticipate certain outcomes, how do you ever plan where you’ll end up?”
Quentin smiled at her, then reached out and put his palm on her cheek. “Maybe you’ll end up right here.”
Then, he leaned in and kissed her—her cheek still in his hand as if he were holding on to something precious. Alice had kissed boys before, but never like this. Their kiss was a thing of their own invention—like a river flowing through every cell in her body, then out into the universe.
He pulled her in closer and she devoured his smell—a mix of pool chlorine and sweat that might have seemed unpleasant to anyone else in the world, but to Alice, it was delicious. His lips wandered down to her ear, her neck.
She let out a little moan, unintentionally, but she didn’t even think to be embarrassed until she felt him pull away. Had her noise freaked him out? What other reason could there possibly be for him to interrupt this perfect moment? But when Alice opened her eyes, she saw the reason right in front of her, looking in through the window of the van. And her name was Mrs. Oldham.
“TOMFOOLERY”
I WANT TO LIVE LIFE LIKE VACATION
I WANT TO RUIN MY REPUTATION
GET OUT OF MY CAR
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE STATION
ON MY RADIO.
BUT I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO.
—from Level3’s self-titled first CD