Heart Shaped Rock (11 page)

I clear my throat and look back up at him. His blue eyes are patient. “No, the songs I write are more folk-rock, I guess you’d call it.”

“Ah, a classic singer-songwriter.” He smiles and rests his forearms on the table. “I can see that in you. You’ve got that
intelligence
in your eyes.”

I feel magnetically pulled toward this boy.

Dean licks his lips and leans toward me.

My chest is clanging a mile a minute.

His eyes darken. “Your freckles are killing me right now,” he whispers.

Oh my God. Spillage on Aisle Shaynee.

“Everything okay?” Mr. Jimmy asks, suddenly standing at the edge of our table.

Dean leans back in his chair and clears his throat. “Oh, yeah, man, everything was ridiculous. You laid it on thick for us, Mr. Jimmy. I owe you big.”

“You just keep coming here on Wednesday nights,” Mr. Jimmy says, “and I’ll take good care of you.”

“Deal.”

I’m suddenly alert. I look at my watch. It’s 9:45. “Oh crap. I promised my dad I’d be home by ten.”

The night air is chilly. “Where’s your car?” Dean asks, scanning the parking lot.

I motion toward my coupe thirty yards away. “Over there.” I shiver.

“Are you cold?”

“A little.”

“Just a sec.” He drops my hand abruptly and takes off in the other direction, leaving me standing there unsure what the heck he’s doing. In just a few bounding leaps, he arrives at his motorcycle, which I only now notice a few yards behind us. He opens a locked box just behind the seat and pulls something out of it. He sprints back to me, his combat boots clomping on the asphalt as he goes. “Here you go.” It’s his black leather jacket—his
dad’s
black leather jacket—and he’s offering it to
me
. “You can give it back to me the next time I see you.” His face is flushed.

“Won’t you be freezing riding home?”

“Naw, I’ll be fine.” He places the jacket over my bare shoulders and I hug it to me. “I could use a big blast of cold air right about now.” He flashes a mischievous smile.

I blush.

Now that I know what this jacket means to him, there’s no doubt I should tell him, “No, you can’t let me borrow this.” But that’s not what comes out of my mouth. Instead, what I say is, “When can I give it back?”

“Tomorrow.” He pulls me close to him.

My heart lurches into my throat. “I’m working tomorrow after school. At Sheila’s? It’s a coffeehouse in PB.”

“I know it well,” he says. “I’ll see you there tomorrow.”

I want to kiss him more than I want to breathe. I bite my lip.

He leans his face close to mine, slowly, double-checking he’s invited, and when I close my eyes and tilt my face toward him, I feel his hand on my cheek and then his lips against mine.

Oh my God.

His lips are warm and soft. And he smells like the ocean (assuming the ocean smells preposterously delectable)
.
I return his kiss with obvious fervor and his breath hitches in surprise. He responds to my enthusiasm by wrapping his arms around my back and pressing his entire body into mine, until I can feel his heart leaping out of his chest and knocking against my own, begging to come in. “
Yes, yes, yes,
” my heart replies to his.
“Come in.”

I’ve never tasted anything so scrumptious in all my life. I inhale him, breathe him in. I want to ingest him like oxygen. I want him to infiltrate my blood and course through my veins and implant himself right into the very tissue of my heart. I want to gobble him up like how Pac Man devours those little white dots. I want to slurp up him up like chicken noodle soup, absorb him like a dry sponge dunked into a bucket of sudsy water, pull him into me like a vacuum cleaner on a shag carpet.

I want to jump his bones.

I press my body into his and his lips continue their now voracious entreaty.

My cup runneth over,
I suddenly think
. And over and over and over.

I’m not sure I can continue kissing Dean like this without tackling him or bursting into tears. Or flames. Or screaming hysterically. Or flailing my arms and legs. Or passing out. Or doing all of the above. All at once.

Right on cue, as if he’s able to read my maniacal thoughts, Dean pulls back from our kiss. My entire body tingles like I’ve got fireworks going off in my nerve endings. My knees are weak.

Dean takes a small step back and cups my cheeks with his hands. “Shaynee,” he whispers.

I let out a long, audible, swooning sigh. “Dean.”

He smiles.

We laugh.

I want to kiss him again. I want to kiss him forever and ever and ever. I don’t want this night to end. What I want to do is lean toward him and demand that he kiss me again and never stop. What I want to do is leap into his arms. What I want to do is grab him by the hand and pull him to some far away place where we can sit together, forever and ever, and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss. What I want to do is scream, “I’m all yours!” at the top of my lungs. What I want to do is jump up and down. And on top of him.

But, of course, I don’t do any of those things.

“It’s after ten,” Dean says softly. “You’d better get going. We don’t want to start things off on the wrong foot with your dad.”

I don’t speak. I’m afraid I’ll say, “Screw my dad. Forget about my curfew. To hell with everything and everyone except you and me.” Since I know I shouldn’t say any of those things, I don’t say anything at all.

“Thanks for coming here tonight,” Dean says.

“Thanks for inviting me here,” I reply, finally able to muster a coherent sentence that doesn’t involve defying my father or hysterically professing my undying love to this beautiful boy. “Actually, thanks for
wishing
me here.”

He grins. “Yeah, that worked out pretty damned well, if I do say so myself.”

I nod in agreement. “Pretty damned well, indeed. Even though you cheated.”

Dean laughs. “I didn’t cheat.”

Reluctantly, I open my car door and settle into my seat. The scent of Dean’s leather jacket instantly fills my car. When I look back at Dean through my car window, he holds up his palm into a farewell wave and shoots me one last, ice-cap-melting smile.

Oh hell. I want to hurl my body out of my car and kiss him some more. I want to lean out my window and yell, “Get in!” and then haul ass across the Mexican border to some little fishing village where no one could ever find us, a place where we’d sit on the beach all day and night, laughing and writing songs together and eating rice and beans and handmade tortillas. And kissing.

But I don’t.

I want to slap my own face out of pure exhilaration.

But I don’t. Because only someone certifiable would do that, right?

Instead, I blow him a quick kiss, trying to make it seem like a casual “see ya later, whatevs” gesture, rather than the last sane act of a girl about to lose her mind to an all-consuming obsession. Then, even though it literally pains me to do it, I turn the key in my ignition and drive away.

Dad’s on his laptop at the kitchen table when I arrive home just before 10:30. When he sees me, he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s a school night, Shay.” His tone is stern.

“I’m sorry, Dad. It won’t happen again. I was having so much fun, I just lost track of time.”

When I say the word “fun,” I see the beginnings of a smile flicker across his mouth, but he stifles it. “Okay, honey, but it’s a school night. I can let things slide a bit on weekends, but not on school nights.”

“I know, Dad. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He looks surprised. “Say that again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No the other thing.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re right.”

“I was worried sick.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Good. Okay, then. So how was the show?”

“Good.”

“You had fun?”

“Yep. Well, good night, Pops.” I kiss him on the cheek, then turn toward the hallway.

“Where’d you get the jacket?”

I turn back, blushing.

Now he can’t stifle his smile. “It looks good on you.”

Before going into my room, I decide to peek in on Lennox. He’s fast asleep, a dragon comic book open on his chest and ear buds in his ears. Dad must have bought him a new iPod after my Shaynee-Smash-Meltdown the other night. I look down at the iPod display. Mom’s song, “My Boy” is playing on repeat. That figures, since she wrote it for him. I gently remove the earphones from Lenn’s ears, and as I do, the compressed sound of Mom’s voice through the buds wafts through the air:

“Boy, my boy,

My pride, my joy

I’d lay down my life for you,

Stand up and fight for you,

Carry you right through a fire

At the end of the day

You will make your own way

All I ask is that you kiss me goodbye

Oh boy, you better kiss me goodbye”

I listen to the flattened sound of Mom’s voice through the earphones in the palm of my hand all the way through to the end of the song, and then I turn off the iPod and put it on Lenn’s nightstand.

Back in my own room, I lay Dean’s jacket on my bed with care, put on my pajamas, and set my alarm. I’m about to climb into bed, but instead, at the last second, I walk over to my desk and pick up Mom’s DVD. “
Watch this, Shaynee-Bug. Happy Birthday,”
her handwriting says. I touch the face of the DVD with my finger, imagining Mom writing that message to me.

It’s time.

With a sigh, I put Dean’s jacket on over my pajamas and sneak quietly down the hall to the family room.

Chapter 10

My heart’s beating out of my chest.

I press play on the DVD remote and hold my breath. The television screen flickers to life in response to my command, and Mom appears in front of me on the screen.

Tears instantly prick my eyes at the sight of her. She’s gaunt and wearing a headscarf. By the look of her, I’m guessing this was about a month before she went into the hospital for the last time. Where were all of us when she made this video?

She reaches toward me, a look of befuddlement on her face, clearly fiddling with some button on her video camera. I smile. Mom never was the greatest with technology; I bet she was proud of herself for making this video all by herself. “Shaynee,” she used to yell from her computer hutch in the corner of her bedroom. “How do I crop pictures, again?” I’d go in there, exasperated, patronizing her with, “Poor Mom, how do you get anything accomplished without me?”

“It’s a miracle I can even tie my shoes,” she’d retort. “The older
you
get, the dumber
I
get.” Then she’d laugh her full-throated laugh. Of course, in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, I’d manage whatever computer- or photography-related problem she might have had. “Ah,” she’d say every time, “you’re a genius, Shaynee-bug.”

Mom backs away from the television screen and settles herself into the blue chair in our family room. I glance at the blue chair to my right—sitting empty now—and Mom’s hologram flickers in and out of it.

Back onscreen, Mom smiles at me. “Hi, Shaynee-bug.” It’s a shock to hear her voice. “Happy Sweet Sixteen, my darling baby girl. I’m so sorry I’m not there to celebrate it with you—in my body, anyway. I hope you know I’m there in spirit, and that’s not a figure of speech.”

I smile, and the rounded tops of my cheeks push tears out of my eyes.

“Honey, I’ve got so much to tell you. Unfortunately, all the stuff I want to say would take three lifetimes, and I’ve barely got one. So, I’m going to have to hit the highlights and hope it’s enough—although, of course, I know it’ll never, ever be enough. I’m so sorry about that, my love. You deserve so much more than a mom in a video. You deserve hugs and kisses and touches. You deserve a mom who gives you advice. And babysits your future babies.” She chokes up at this last sentence and puts her hands over her face. Her shoulders rack with sobs.

Water pours out of my eyes in a steady stream.

Mom recovers herself, but my tears continue.

“I’m sorry about that, Shay,” she says, wiping her eyes. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. That’s the last thing you need right now. Wooh! ” She blows out a gust of air and shakes out her hands in an apparent effort to gain control of herself. “Okay. I don’t have that much time.” She laughs. “I mean to make this video, although, clearly, I don’t have much time, period. So I’d better get to it.”

Her awareness that time was so limited is news to me. Up until the very end, she always assured me she was “gonna beat this thing, just you wait.” Her two favorite phrases through it all were, “What do doctors know?” and “I’m not a damned statistic.” And up until her very last days, until there was absolutely no denying her irreversible deterioration, I had believed her. I swallow hard in anticipation of her next words. My crying has turned ugly.

“Happy birthday, Bug. Sweet sixteen. Wow. And sweet you are—as sweet as any little girl could ever be. Thank you for making me a mother. Being a mommy was the best thing I ever did in my whole life. And even though my life is turning out to be quite a bit shorter than I’d have liked, it’s most definitely
complete
, because I have
you
—and Lennox and your beautiful daddy, too, of course. I’ve had everything a girl could ever hope to have in life, no matter how short or long.”

I take a deep breath, trying to thwart my gushing tears. No luck.

“I’m gonna talk about you in a minute, lovebug, don’t you worry. But first off, I need to talk about your dad for a second. I expect he’s not handling my departure too well. He could barely survive my spa weekends away with Aunt Leslie. I’m sorry to put this on you, but the only way that man is going to start healing is thanks to three things: the grace of God, the passage of time—neither of which you can do anything about, and unconditional love from you and your brother. When he’s sad, your daddy shuts down and doesn’t talk about his feelings—gee, does that sound like someone else we know, Shaynee-bug?” She laughs. “But, like I said, I’ll get to you later.” She looks up to the sky as if she’s trying to recapture her train of thought. “Oh yes, okay, so be patient with him, and just let him know you love him. Let him be there for you, too, whenever he can. He wants so much to help you, to say all the right things. Just know that those wishes are in his heart, even if he doesn’t always know how to express himself. All three of you just need to love each other, more than ever. Okay?”