The Moment Before

Chapter Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

Connor tells me he comes in peace, and offers a selection of Voodoo’s finest, a Jimmy-studded ice cream cone, a doughnut covered in bubble gum, one sprinkled with Tang. And the signature doughnut, a voodoo doll, pierced through the heart with a pretzel rod. I point to that one. “Apropos.”

            “I knew you wouldn’t be in school today,” he says.

            “What was your first clue?” I say, going back to my sketch. I don’t want to make nice with Connor. Not yet.

            “That’s awesome, by the way,” he says, pointing to the project at hand.

            I shrug.

            “You got some balls, girl. Calling that douchebag out. Well done.”

            “That comment? Not making me feel better.”

            He goes back to picking petals from my shoulder. Like a monkey preening its buddy for lice.

He says, “Did you collide with a Rose Festival float or something?”

            “Sort of. What the fuck do you want, Connor?”

            Connor drops the box of doughnuts on the grass, grabs my charcoal-wielding hand, and turns it over in his. “Delicate. But, such a mouth on you.”

            I want to slap him. Say, How dare you? I want to pull my hand away from his and keep sketching the stairway to nowhere. But, of course I don’t. And why don’t I? Connor’s hand on my hand is sending jolts of knee-buckling electricity up and in and through.

            “Here’s a memo,” he says, his green and amber eyes straight into mine. “I’m an idiot.”

            I’m not wearing a 1950’s house dress anymore. The black and blue Dad bruise on me has faded. Probably what I most resemble at this moment is a molting flamingo. With black smudge on my claw. Clearly as unkissable today as I was yesterday.

            “That’s not news.”

            “Can we have a do-over?” he says, half serious and half joking.

            “What, exactly, do you want to do over?”

            Connor drops my hand and gently lifts my sketch pad and places it on top of the doughnut box. He stands, pulls me up and into him. Leans my head against the hollow of his neck, and just holds me, his arms around my body the way I know they held my sister. Firm.

            He tangles his fingers in my hair and pulls just a little bit, so my face and his face, there’s no looking away.

            His breath is a little weedy, a little doughnuty. Traces of sugar on his lips. And his tongue, when it finds mine, it’s the flesh of everything in nature. Wild, hungry. Spring.

            I kiss back, and the parts of me know what to do, like they’ve gone off and taken a course in this. Without telling me. It’s like my hand with the charcoal. Finding connection, language. There is no sound between us. Not one sound. Am I dreaming with the audio unplugged? It’s like we’re under water.

            Who knows how long we’re kissing? Who knows how many birds have witnessed this? How many blossoms? Hate:Love. Just like that.

            Footsteps pull us away from each other. A park official looking for off-leash pets, open containers. He slows as he walks by, no doubt assessing our age and truant potential. But we’re almost eighteen. We could pass for adults. For high school graduates rather than the dropouts we are.

            You’re not dropping out, says Sabine. Into the air I say, “Hush.”

            The park official marches on in his bright orange vest. Bigger fish to fry.

            “Do over,” Connor says. “Was worth it, don’t you think?”

            I’m a little dizzy. All I can muster is a nod.

             Would Sabine approve? Think I’m nuts? And like he’s reading my mind, he says, “I want to tell you a couple more things. They’re about Sabine. And me.”

            I melt back down on my plastic bag, reach my hand underneath the sketch pad and into the soggy doughnut box. Before I let my teeth sink into the chocolate face of the voodoo doll, I say, “OK.”

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