sorry i didn't post yesterday. two more parts after this.
sixteen
“Will, pass your father the bacon, would you?” requested my mother from across the table.
I diligently picked up the platter of bacon and gave it to my dad.
“Thank you, William,” said my father.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” declared Jake, pushing his plate out in front of him to outwardly display his not-hungriness.
Sara was next to join the satiated bandwagon: “Me neither.”
“Well, the rest of us are still in the middle of a meal,”—they were actually in the middle of a conversation about health care—“so you two are going to have to wait,” Eden told her children.
“I’m done,” Lilah piped up, “do you want me to take them down to the pool or something?”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Jake, followed closely by a, “Yes!” from Sara.
Eden let out a sigh and then said, “That would be lovely, Lilah. But just make sure that they wear lots of sunscreen.”
“I will,” she assured her aunt.
Not wanting to be the only person under twenty in the room (Charlie had gone off to a college orientation a few days ago and was now “exploring the area” with some friends), I quickly volunteered myself as another aide: “I’ll go out with them, too.”
“Thank you, Will,” Eden said.
So then everything happened in a bit of a blur. Lilah and I picked up our plates to put them in the kitchen, but Hillary said not to bother, because she would deal with them later. Then I left the house with Jacob Green, Sara Green, and Lilah Tov, because I wasn’t really in the mood to go swimming, meaning that I didn’t need to change. The four of us trekked over to the Greens’ house, and Lilah darted upstairs with the kids (even though we were all, like, kids) while I waited in the kitchen. When the three returned, all except for one were dressed in bathing suits, armed with towels. Evidently, Lilah also didn’t want to go swimming, just like me.
We exited the house and then went around back to the glistening pool. Not a single drop of water was disturbed, and it looked kind of like a mirror, because it was reflecting the sun and it was clear and just flat. Well, that was until Jake broke the number one rule when being around pools (DON’T RUN) and ran right over to it, cannonballing in with a certain je ne sais quoi—which was a fancy French word that literally meant, “I don’t know”—about it that could only be achieved by Jacob Green. Sara soon followed, though she only tiptoed into the shallow end, barely getting her legs wet.
Lilah was next to enter the pool premises, and she wandered over to a rocking chair (which was really more of a rocking bench, but calling it a “bench” sounded wrong, so it was a “chair”) and sat down with her legs tucked under her body.
Because I didn’t want to be an absolute loser and just stare from afar at the scene occurring before me, I joined Lilah and sat next to her on the rocking chair/bench. It creaked and shook a bit when I sat down, but Lilah didn’t seem to mind or notice. She was focused on her cousins, making sure that they didn’t drown each other, despite being on opposite ends of the pool. There was a good amount of space between us on the bench (created mostly by me), because in the presence of two kids related to Lilah whose parents were hosting her for the summer, it felt wrong to be close.
But then Lilah said, “Really, Will? Really?”
I wasn’t sure what she was commenting on so I just said, “What?”
“After all we’ve been though are you seriously going to sit that far away from me?” She laughed a bit, mocking my supposed respect for the company of her family.
“Are you asking me to move closer to you?”
“I’m asking why you weren’t closer in the first place.”
Her words left only one thing for me to do, so I scooted over, making sure to not squish her. Then I put one of my arms over her and caused her head to rest on the curve of my neck and shoulder. “Is this close enough for you?”
“Karov,” Lilah mumbled, readjusting her position, “isn’t that a pretty word?”
“Uh, sure. What’s it mean?”
“Close,” she said.
“Oh, uh, okay.”
Lilah didn’t have anything to say that, and I couldn’t really blame her. “Oh, uh, okay” was like the guillotine of conversations. After one encountered that, there was really no going back. And because I didn’t want to make the situation ever more awkward, I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say a word. Instead, I just reveled in the simplicity and ease of everything happening to me and around me.
There were two kids playing in the pool, occasionally splashing one another but not doing anything life-threatening. Over a stone wall there was a white house, where the parents of the kids playing in the pool were finishing up Brunch with my parents. The almost-August air was dense and warm, but not muggy, and it wasn’t the type of temperature from which one died of heatstroke. Maybe a little dehydration would pop up, but nothing more. And then sitting on an elongated rocking chair was a gorgeous girl named Lilah Tov and a boy named William Brooks, III, who was incredibly unworthy of her time. But somehow William had conned his way into an involvement with the girl, so he was happy and he hoped that she was happy, too.
Most of the time I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t unhappy, either, but I wasn’t actively happy, in the sense that I felt the happiness surging through my body, at the back of my mind wondering when it would come crashing down to an end. Because happiness wasn’t perpetual—it was transitory, and sometimes people forgot that, which caused them to spiral down when the happiness was over into a span of depression. (I was pretty sure that that wasn’t actually how depression worked because I didn’t have a doctorate in psychology, but, like, whatever). My issue was that I knew the happiness was fleeting, all too well. Because instead of enjoying the happiness when it lasted, I was focused on when it would abruptly end. When I was happy, my mind turned to ominous thoughts of when something would become unbalanced and then it would all stop.
I lived a very privileged life. And I knew that I did. I went to one of the best private schools in the country, I would probably go to an Ivy League in a few years, and from there I would be off to Harvard Law, followed by my induction into the family business, and then to cap it all off, I would probably turn to politics as an end game in the career department. My life had been planned out since the day I was born. My parents had provided me with everything I needed in order to succeed, and for that I was eternally indebted. I had everything I needed and everything I wanted, too. But in spite of all that, rarely was I ever truly happy.
It wasn’t because I was ungrateful, because I wasn’t. I appreciated everything that was my life, but appreciation didn’t breed happiness. Shit. The more I thought about happiness and all that crap, the more evidence I provided for my parents’ theory of me being sensitive and all that. Whatever. I wasn’t happy most of the time, but right now I was. But who wouldn’t be? My arm was wrapped around Lilah Tov and it was summer and everything seemed to be going well. But that was just it—it “seemed” to be going well, but I knew that that wouldn’t be the case for long. Because summer would end or something else would happen. And I was just waiting for that something else to pop out of nowhere and ruin everything. I knew it would happen. That was how life worked.
I glanced down at Lilah, focusing in on a certain part of her body. It wasn’t her boobs or her butt or even her lips—it was her hair. It was long and dark and wavy and I wanted nothing more than to run my fingers through it. Which sounded kind of creepy and kind of lame and kind of gay (even though it made me sound like a total jackass using that descriptor, because I knew that “gay” was only a good adjective for people who happened to be homosexual), but that was what I wanted to do. So I did. I picked up one of my hands and began to slip my fingers through it lightly. Lilah didn’t comment on whether she liked the act or not, but she didn’t stop me from doing it. So as we gently rocked on the rocking chair thing, I played with Lilah Tov’s hair, feeling as if another barrier had been eliminated between us.
Anybody could kiss and hook up and have sex. But when it came to something so simple but complexly intimate as playing with one’s hair, it registered on an entirely different scale. In order to preform the feat, one had to establish some amount of trust. Because randomly going over to someone and touching their hair was socially unacceptable. Though, after an association was built and trust was ascertained, everything else followed. It was no longer weird to play with one’s hair, and other walls were knocked down, too. So right now, I was playing with Lilah Tov’s hair and it was pretty cool because it meant that there was at least some trust between us and I kind of liked that we didn’t just have to kiss all the time, even though I wouldn’t mind kissing Lilah all the time, because she was a fantastic kisser.
“You’re, like, a really nice guy, Will,” Lilah abruptly whispered. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I, uh, guess,” I replied, caught entirely off-guard by her observation.
“I’m not that nice,” continued Lilah, “and I don’t wish I were, either.”
It became clear to me that Lilah wasn’t exactly saying these things for me. She was saying them so that she could hear them herself, but having me eavesdrop made it less weird, so she wasn’t, like, talking to herself or something. So because I knew I wasn’t really supposed to be a participant in this one-sided conversation, I just said, “Uh huh.”
“Like, I’m not mean, but I’m kind of selfish. I want things for me that don’t necessarily benefit other people and I don’t feel bad about wanting these things. I don’t think that that makes me a horrible person, does it?”
“No at all.”
“I know this is kind of random, but I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately,” she said, “because unlike me, you’re super nice.”
“I’m polite,” I corrected, “there’s a difference.”
“Not when it comes to you, there’s not. Will, deny it all you want, but you’re a super nice guy. And you know how I know you’re a nice guy?”
I kept stroking (that word always made me cringe) her hair and asked, “How?”
“Because before the Fourth of July, you could’ve kissed me any time. I would’ve let you. Hell, the first time we met, I would’ve been fine kissing you. Because I’m selfish and not that nice and I wanted to kiss you, because you’re really attractive, and I like kissing attractive boys. But you didn’t kiss me until that night, because you’re really nice—and kind of a loser, but a nice and totally attractive loser, nonetheless.”
“Just because I waited to kiss you doesn’t mean that I’m nice,” I refuted, trying to ignore the fact that Lilah had just called me a loser and focus on the “attractive” bit.
“Oh, but it does, Will,” she countered. “Because I’ve kissed a lot of guys, and most of them weren’t that nice. None of them waited as long as you did, and maybe that’s because they’re cooler than you or hornier than you, but I’m glad you waited.”
“Uh, I’m kind of confused,” I admitted sheepishly.
“About what?”
“Are you saying that I’m nice because I waited to kiss you or that I waited to kiss you because I’m nice or something else entirely.”
“Honestly, I’m not really sure what I’m saying. I just know that you’re really nice, so I’m sorry for crashing into your life and corrupting it.”
My fingers stopped moving through Lilah’s hair and my entire body followed in suit, also freezing. “Firstly, if my memory is correct, I was the one who crashed into your life, and secondly, why the heck are you apologizing?”
She smiled at me and I couldn’t look away from that smile. Because it was beautiful, just like the rest of her, and though this conversation seemed be getting increasingly elegiac by the second, her smile made up for it. “I was going to say something totally narcissistic, but I’ll spare you the words.”
I wasn’t really sure what was happening, but then a shrill shriek from the middle of the pool caused both of our attentions to shift. Jake had gone over to Sara and was now splashing her with no remorse. Sara’s hands covered her eyes, trying to shield them from the burning chlorine. Lilah sprung up from the rocking chair (or bench) and then speed-walked her way over to the two kids. Jake stopped splashing Sara. Sara kept up her screaming.
“Sara, please stop,” begged Lilah as I joined her side. “And Jake, get out of the pool.”
“But—”
“Were you just splashing Sara?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I want you to get out of the pool for ten minutes.”
“But, Lilah—”
“Out of the pool. Now.”
Jake was smart to know when Lilah meant business. Now happened to be one of those times, so with a deeply engraved frown on his face, Jake stomped out of the pool, making sure to splash Sara once more for good measure. Unfortunately for Jake, the act didn’t go unnoticed by his older cousin.
“Now it’s fifteen minutes,” Lilah upped his consequence.
“But—” began Jake.
“Do you want me to make it twenty minutes?”
Jake didn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought. Apologize to your sister and then go sit down.”
Reluctantly, Jake mumbled out a half-assed apology to Sara, who was still acting like the defenseless victim in the situation. Then he made another mistake: “Lilah, can I at least go get my Nintendo?”
Lilah stared at the boy for a long moment and then just shook her head back and forth. “Shev, Jake. Now.”
Jake turned to go to a poolside seat and muttered something under his breath.
“Excuse me?” demanded Lilah.
“I’m going!” Jake sighed, stomping over to a seat and leaving a trail of wetness behind. He sat down, getting the cushion beneath him soaked, and glared at Sara, because it was obviously her fault that he had gotten in trouble.
“What’s ‘shev’?” I inquired, pretty sure that I was pronouncing the word correctly.
“‘Sit,’” Lilah told me.
I nodded and then said, “You dealt with that very well, Lilah Tov.”
“Thanks, Willy B.”
“Do you like kids?”
“Hate ‘em,” she laughed hoarsely. “But babysitting pays well, and these two aren’t that bad most of the time.”
“I heard that!” Jake shouted from his seated timeout post.
“I don’t care!” Lilah called right back, mimicking his tone. Then she leaned in closer to me so that her lips were right by my ear and breathed, “If I didn’t have to watch these two, I would totally kiss you right now.”
I grinned and said, “Sounds good to me.”
She patted my cheek and then went over to deal with Jake, who had taken up singing that song about the trees and kissing and baby carriages. The names he used, though, were what got Lilah’s attention. She tacked on another five minutes to Jake’s punishment, just as he started up the song again: “Lilah and Will, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G…” And as I watched her so skillfully handle an unruly ten-year-old boy, I began to wish that we were K-I-S-S-I-N-G.