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“Tell me.”
He pulled my head onto his shoulder and pressed it down there, almost roughly. “No. You’re conceited enough.”
“Never enough.” I raised my head and studied his face, then gently traced the line of his nose with my fingertip. It felt almost wicked to do something that intimate. His skin was pale and smooth, with slight purple shadows just under his eyes. It seemed perfect to me.
He lay there with his eyes closed, letting me trail my finger lightly along the outlines of his face. Then he grabbed my hand and pressed it against the side of his cheek. Then he opened his eyes. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I said, and settled back down next to him, pressed against his side, inside the circle of his arm. Where I belonged.
thirty-four
Eventually he took me home. It was late, so I crept quietly up to my room, assuming everyone was asleep. I was lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, too dazed and happy to start getting ready for bed or do anything really, other than gaze at the spi
“Well,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Nothing—really, nothing—could make me as sure that I wasn’t dreaming as the sight of my grandmother in her striped long johns (yellow and green) with her he
“Hi,” I said, sitting up. “I didn’t know you were still awake.”
She came over and settled down next to me. “Someone’s in love! And I know who with.”
“It’s not exactly a secret.”
“He’s a good one. I approve.”
I bit down on the sarcastic rejoinder I wanted to make—oh, thank you, because of course I wouldn’t dream of dating someone without your approval—and just said I agreed: he was a good one.
“And now,” she said, “we need to talk about condoms.”
“Oh, God, no,” I said fervently. “Please not now.”
She waggled her finger at me. “If you’re going to act like an adult, you need to be responsible like an adult.”
“Can’t I just enjoy kissing a boy for the first time without having to talk about all that? That’s all we’ve done, I swear.”
“You’d be surprised how quickly one thing leads to another.”
“We both want to take things slowly.” George did, anyway. I wasn’t so sure and had done my best to break down his defenses that night. I’d almost succeeded. But not quite.
It had been fun trying.
My being impulsive and his being cautious—it was who we were. It felt right even when everything else between us had changed.
“Don’t be afraid of sex,” Grandma said. “It’s good for the body—it revs up your circulation and improves brain function. But you do have to be careful. So . . . condoms.”
“Got it,” I said, deciding it was easiest just to agree with everything she said: arguing would lead to a longer discussion, and I really just wanted to be alone. Almost as much as I didn’t want to have a Sex Talk with my grandmother.
“It’s good to be practical, but never forget that sex can be spiritual, too,” she went on. “There’s the tantric approach, of course. And the many positions of the Kama Sutra. And yoga can open you up to better orgasms—but I had to stop doing yoga because of my hip problems. You’re lucky you’re young.”
I nodded, my face blank. I don’t have to listen. I have to sit here, but I don’t have to hear what she’s saying.
She nudged my shoulder with hers. “Experiment. I wish I’d experimented more when I was young and my body was like yours.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
She put her face close to mine. “Your mother isn’t as open-minded as I am,” she whispered. “No one was wilder than she was as a teenager, but now she likes to pretend that none of that happened. So don’t go to her if you have questions. Come to me.” She shifted back. “My mother didn’t talk to me openly about sex and it took me decades to learn everything I’m telling you tonight. I want you to be an expert right away. So ask me anything.”
“I will,” I said. “Only not tonight. I’m really tired.”
“Sex gives you energy,” she said. “Did you know that? It doesn’t work with men—they lose energy with sex. But women gain energy from it. Remember that.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and she smiled and, to my huge relief and with one more pat on my leg, finally left.
I couldn’t fall asleep. I just couldn’t. Most of it was happy, excited energy, but there was a tiny part of me that felt uneasy—the part that didn’t know how I was going to tell Heather that I was totally in love with the guy she had admitted to having a crush on.
Eventually I gave up on sleeping, picked up my phone, and texted George. He was awake, too. We texted for a while. It was ridiculous—we had been together all evening but still had so much to say to each other. Neither of us was the sentimental type, so it wasn’t gooey and silly, but we talked about what we should do together tomorrow and the next day and the next and about his frustrations with not having a real job yet and about my anxiety about leaving for college when I felt like Mom and Jacob still needed me—stuff like that. One thought led to another, which led to another. It could have gone on all night, but sometime after two a.m. I heard a wail from down the hall.
Jacob’s crying. Going to get him
I dropped my phone and went to Jacob’s room. He was sitting up in his bed, rubbing his eyes, and softly weeping.
“Hey, there, baby dude,” I whispered, and picked him up. “What’s wrong?” I carried him over to the rocker in his room and sat down. “Why so sad?”
He said something. It was definitely a word—I just didn’t know what word. It sounded a little like “uggy” so I repeated it. “Uggy?”
He shook his head and said it again.
“Oggy? Uppy?”
He moaned in frustration and hit me—lightly—with his fist. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, just letting me know I wasn’t getting it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish you could talk.”
“Me too.”
I looked up over his head and saw Luke in the doorway.
“He wake you up?” he asked as he came over to us.
“I was awake anyway.”
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I can take him if you want to go back to sleep.”
“I’m okay. I just wish I knew what he was trying to tell me. I think he had a bad dream or something and he’s trying to tell me what it was about.”
“Uggy,” Jacob said again.
“Uggy?” I repeated, and his body became rigid with fury.
“No!” He collapsed against me, sobbing.
“See?” I said to Luke. I stroked Jakie’s back. “You know what he means?”
“No idea.” Luke sat down on the corner of the bed nearest us. “Poor little guy. He’s so frustrated.”
“You’d be frustrated, too, if you couldn’t speak the language.”
There was a pause.
“Luke?” I said.
“Mm?” His hair was sticking up fu
I touched the top of Jacob’s head and said quietly, “I really don’t think Mom’s being crazy when she says there may be something going on with him.”
His face tightened. “I never said she was crazy. I’m just trying to protect him from being boxed into a corner at the age of two.”
“He’s almost three. You should look at those books Mom bought today. A lot fits.”
“Your mother just starts jumping to conclusions—”
“It’s not jumping to a conclusion if you’ve really thought about it—it’s reaching one, and that’s different.” I hugged Jacob hard. “This guy is amazing. He’s smart and cute and wonderful and nothing changes that. But I want him to learn to talk to us. Don’t you?”