“Come on,” he says. “Walk copy me.”
I’m getting used to his funny use of words, even starting to find it charming. He doesn’t seem embarrassed by any of it: the crawling, the stuttering, the muddled language. The way he owns it; it’s inspiring. And dead sexy.
He takes me to another set of stairs and crawls up. I follow on two feet. Then, at the end of the corridor, he opens a door. My heart is thundering. What are we doing? Where is he taking me?
“A-a-after you,” he says.
“No thanks.” My voice trembles a little. “After you.”
He goes in and touches a thing on the wall, and the room lights up. It’s a big room, like the parlor, but empty, apart from a few irregular-shaped mounds covered in white sheets. At one end of the room is a huge floor-to-ceiling window.
“Wow,” I say. “How did you know this was here?”
“When it’s n-nighttime and there’s no one around, you … find all many … things.”
Young Guy does a lap of the room, past a lamp and a fireplace that is covered with newspaper. He stops just inches in front of me. My breath catches. Considering I’ve known Young Guy only a short time, I’ve been up close to him quite a lot. Enough that the slope of his cheeks and the faint smatter of stubble on his face are comforting.
Comforting yet, at the same time, terrifying.
I become aware that the silence has gone on awhile, so I open my mouth to fill it. But he shakes his head.
“Just…” he says, “don’t talk.…”
His arms find my waist and pull me closer. And he presses his mouth to mine.
His lips are soft and warm. And suddenly, it feels like I’m floating. Young Guy tastes like peppermint; smells like it. I breathe him in. And then, as fast as it started, the kiss is over.
“Wow,” I say.
He smiles shyly, then drifts over to one sheet-covered mound and flicks off the sheet. Underneath is an old-fashioned record player.
“You like Nat King Cole?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, but my voice is hoarse. Did that just happen?
“G-good. Because that’s a-a-all there is.”
He slides the record out of the cover, parks it on the dial, and lowers the pointy bit. In the next breath, Nat King Cole’s rich baritone notes fill the room. Young Guy and I stare at each other, expressionless.
“This is a joke, right?” I say as the swell of tension gives way to laughter. “‘Unforgettable’?”
“No,” he says, even though he’s laughing now, too. “I’ve listened to this record before, but I don’t remember hearing this song.”
“You … don’t”—A wave of hysteria hits. Now I’m laughing so hard, I can barely get the word out—“remember?”
That sets him off, which sets me off again. Which sets him off again. And for the next few minutes, he and I are just two young people. Laughing. Kissing. And listening to Nat King Cole.
13
When Jack and I were in third grade, he brought me for show and tell. (Well, he didn’t bring me, because I was already there, but he did tug me out of my seat and drag me to the front of the room.)
“This is my sister, Anna,” he told the class, which of course, they already knew. He hadn’t done me the courtesy of forewarning me of this sideshow, and judging by the way Mrs. Ramsey’s eyes shrank into her head, he hadn’t done her the honor either. Anyone else but Jack—the teacher’s pet—might have gotten into trouble for not preparing, but Jack, even at nine, was smooth as a silk tie. “And for show and tell today, I’d like to tell you about her.”
It was, when I think of it now, classic Jack. I was the tough one; he was the sensitive one—the perfect yin to my yang.
“Anna can write her name in Chinese,” he started.
He looked so comfortable, standing at the front of the room. The only time I’d stood at the front was when I was getting in trouble. This was different. Thirty pairs of eyes watched me as Jack offered me a piece of chalk and stood there, grinning, until I wrote my name on the blackboard in Chinese.
“Anna has broken three bones,” he said when I was finished. “She didn’t even cry when she broke her wrist, so Mom didn’t take her to the doctor for three days!”
The class oohed at this, and I grinned and said, “Yes, it’s true,” and “No, it didn’t hurt so bad.”
“Anna ran into the haunted house on Nicholson Street and knocked on the door when no one else was brave enough.”
Mrs. Ramsey’s eyes almost disappeared. I shrugged noncommittally.
“Anna can ride a bike without holding the handles.”
This wasn’t actually that hard, but Jack had always been easily impressed.
“Anna can do lots of things that I can’t do,” he finished up. “I’m really lucky to have such a cool twin.”
Jack shifted to put his arm around me, which was weird, but I allowed it. He could be such a cornball sometimes.