The first time Simone kissed Nora, furtively in her family’s kitchen where they were momentarily alone because Louisa was down the hall in the bathroom, she moved swiftly, before Nora understood what was happening and retreated before Nora could object—or respond or acquiesce or participate. That afternoon, when Simone heard Louisa’s footsteps in the hall, she casually went back to spreading almond butter and jam on brown-rice cakes. Nora couldn’t fathom how Louisa could be oblivious to the new charge in the room, not even notice how the molecules in the kitchen had briefly combusted into something intoxicating and scalding and then quickly resettled into the familiar tableau: bowl of polished apples on a butcher-block island, marble counter with a six-burner range, gleaming teakettle with a plastic whistle in its spout shaped like a little red bird. Behind Louisa’s back, Simone smiled beguilingly at Nora, who was consumed for the rest of the afternoon by one thought: Again.
Sometimes Nora and Louisa babysat the little boy across the street, and what he loved most was for them to each take one of his hands and walk across the front lawn, swinging him by the arm, high into the air. Again! he would shout, gleeful, the minute they reached the perimeter of the yard. They’d turn around and go back in the other direction and before they even reached the fence on the opposite side, he’d start yelling Again! Again! When he’d see them in the street, he’d start bouncing in his stroller. Again! he’d yell, waving at them. “Tomorrow, Lucas!” they’d call. “We’ll play tomorrow!” There was never enough Again for Lucas. No matter how many times Nora and Louisa swung him across the front lawn, until their arms were tired and their shoulders sore, no matter how they tried to refocus his attention with cookies or the swing or by playing peekaboo, when they stopped, he would cry and cry.
After Simone, Nora knew exactly how he must have felt. Thought that the sensation he must love when being lifted off the ground, propelled forward by some bigger, outside force, the swinging, the swoop of belly, the weightlessness, the sense of flying, it had to be almost sensual, a little-kid precursor to pubescent desire, lust, hunger.
Again was exactly how Nora felt after Simone kissed her. Nora couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss, about the velvety feel of Simone’s almond-flavored tongue in her mouth, about the almost-imperceptible brush of Simone’s fingers at her waist—or about when it might happen again.
It didn’t take long. The following week they went into a store to try on clothes and Simone slipped into Nora’s dressing room. The minute the door was closed, Simone had Nora pressed against the wall and Nora did what she’d been thinking about doing all day and all night for a solid week—she kissed Simone back. Exploring Simone’s mouth with her tongue, biting her bright and full lower lip, grabbing fistfuls of Simone’s long braids and wrapping them around both hands and tugging lightly until Simone’s head tilted back, exposing her long, elegant throat and Nora fastened her mouth, the tip of her tongue, to the precise spot on Simone’s neck where her pulse fluttered. That day, they’d pressed against each other until a saleswoman had gently knocked on the door and said, “How’s it going in there? Anything working for you?”