Then: u have a hot ass.
We only got to hang out one other time that week. That’s another reason things didn’t move faster when we were actually together. My parents were forcing me to do all these hellish Christmastime church activities (at least I’d finally outgrown the Nativity pageant), and I guess Mike’s family kept him busy too. Plus, it was tricky figuring out excuses to sneak away and hang out with him. I knew I couldn’t just tell my parents I had plans to randomly spend time with the way older son of our new neighbors. So both times we went out, I said I was going to have dinner at my friend Sarah’s house. It scared the hell out of me, because I never lied to my parents, at least not about stuff like that. Not because I had some moral objection to it or thought God was going to strike me down or something. I’d just never had a reason before.
Mike took me to the Burger Barn again that second time, and still nothing funny happened. He never said a word about those sexy texts he’d sent me. When he dropped me off—a block away from our houses because he knew as well as I did we couldn’t let our parents see us together—he touched my apparently cute nose with his index finger and gave me a wink, and that was the only moment that made the evening feel like sort of a date.
Then before I knew it, New Year’s had passed, and it was just a day before he was supposed to go back to college, and I’d gone into a full-on panic. He texted, asking if I wanted to get together that night and go to his parents’ movie theater after hours. He’d arranged something special, he said.
As I stared at my phone’s screen, my chest started to heave. I thought I might faint, actually faint, the way nobody did in real life but my noir ladies did all the time. He had something special planned. What did that mean? Would we finally kiss tonight? Or would it be just like the other nights? I honestly didn’t know which possibility scared me more.
He asked if I could sneak out of my house late. I knew that part I could manage. I had the only bedroom on the first floor, which meant I had zero privacy, but at least it made stealthy exits easy. Theoretically, at least. Of course I’d never actually tried. He told me to meet him on a corner a block away from our houses at midnight that night.
He drove me to the theater. It had already closed, but he pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked the back door. Inside, he went behind the snack counter and asked what I’d like. Probably blushing, I told him Milk Duds and a Cherry Coke. But I tried to say it the way a femme fatale would order a gin and tonic, with a toss of my head and a mysterious smile.
We went into one of the screening rooms, and he sat me down in the middle of the middle row.
“I’ll be right back,” he said with a wink.
I sat there alone in the big, dim screening room with its scratchy seats and hard armrests and sticky floor, my heart going bang-bang-bang in my chest. I popped a handful of Milk Duds and washed them down with a swallow of Cherry Coke. The room went dark. With a low mechanical hum, the old-fashioned red curtains at the front of the room slid apart to reveal the movie screen. On it the black-and-white Paramount logo appeared, and then the words “DOUBLE INDEMNITY.”
I sucked in a breath.
Mike reappeared next to me. “Didn’t you say you like this kind of movie? I found it in storage and thought of you.”
I didn’t know what to say. He grabbed my hand, and I felt shivers everywhere.
Then he pulled my hand over the armrest and put it in his lap.
Fade to black.
*
The next day he left. I watched from my bedroom window as he waved to his mom and dad, got in his piece of junk car, and chugged away. That night I told my family I didn’t feel well. I went to my room and cried while I clutched my phone and stared at the screen. He’d said he’d text me.
Finally, he did. I miss u.
I cried even harder, tears of sadness and happiness mixed together. I miss u 2!!! I texted back.
how bout sending a pic?
I spent the next three hours working on it. I rehearsed my smokiest, sultriest femme fatale expression in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door, half closing my eyes and holding my head just so. I figured out camera angles and adjusted the lighting. I even tried dabbing Vaseline on my phone’s little camera lens because I’d read somewhere that was what Hollywood photographers used to do to make their portraits of film stars look all blurry and beautiful. (It didn’t work.) The picture I ended up with just made me look like I was really sleepy and had a stiff neck, but I knew I probably wouldn’t do any better even if I tried for another three hours, so I sent it.
I clutched my phone again, wondering if all my effort had been worth it, wondering if he’d just find me hideous.
I didn’t have to wait long. A response came less than a minute later. I meant w/ no clothes on. ;)
Outside my bedroom door, I could hear the rest of my family playing Christian charades. I knew other kids—far, far cooler kids—sexted each other, but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that Mike might want something like that.
Another message showed up on my screen: come on.
Then: I won’t show it to anyone.
Then: I swear.
Then: I think ur gorgeous.
Before I could lose my nerve, I adjusted the lights and figured out the camera angle again. I arranged my old Noah’s ark–patterned sheets on my bed so they looked messy, to suggest . . . I don’t know, that something interesting might have actually happened there. I pulled off all my clothes, fluffed my hair to make it look carelessly tousled, arranged myself on the bed, and snapped the picture.
In my very first shot, I had a more convincingly sultry expression than I’d had in my clothed pic after three hours of trying.
I sent it.
thx.
I waited for him to send another text, or maybe even a picture of his own, but I didn’t hear from him again that night.
The next day I texted, how’s it going?
good! classes starting might get busy.
yeah classes starting here too, I texted back.
I totally understood. I didn’t expect him to keep sending me messages at the same rate he had over the break.
I waited a week. Then two. Nothing. I didn’t allow myself to text him, though. I knew only losers let themselves seem too eager.
But after three weeks, I couldn’t stand it anymore. hi! how r u?
Then: u there?
Then: u okay?
Then: u mad at me?
Then: Mike? plz?
*