My Boyfriends' Dogs (10 page)

Went took my face in his hands. “Bailey, that doesn't have anything to do with you and me. It's not a big deal.”

“Making love—or having sex, or whatever you call it with Carly—that's not a big deal?”

“Babe, it doesn't mean anything.”

“Would it mean something . . . with me?”

He sat up straight. “Whoa. I didn't see that coming.”

“I know.”

“What are you saying here, Bailey?”

I looked into his eyes, and a calm passed over me. “I'm saying that I don't want you to be with Carly. I want you to be with me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Let's be clear here. By ‘be with me,' you're saying . . .”

I laughed. “Have sex! Make love! Do the deed.”

He put his hand over my mouth. Then he took it away and kissed me, hard and deep, soft and gentle, a kiss filled with passion and promise and love.

 

Neither of us wanted my first time to be on top of a '95 compact car. Went said he was going to make this something I'd always remember,
we'd
always remember.

The last week of school, Went ignored Dave and Carly and everybody else. On Tuesday, he was waiting for me when I walked into the cafeteria. “We need to talk.”

Amber took the hint. “If you two will excuse me, I'll go see if they've got anything good at the salad bar . . . like brownies and ice cream.”

“Thanks, Amber,” I whispered as she took off. She and I had avoided the topic of Went Smith since that day in the garage. It had cut down on our conversations, but saved our friendship. I turned to Went. “So, what's going on?”

“I've got a plan for this weekend.” He looked like he could burst into song. “Are you free? Saturday and Sunday?”

“Let me check my date book.” I mimicked paging through an imaginary book.

“Bailey, I'm serious here!” Went gripped my shoulders and peered into my face. I don't think I'd ever seen him like that, as excited as Christmas. He reminded me of Adam when I'd been gone too long and finally came home to him.

“I don't have anything going on this weekend, Went.”

“You do now. It's all worked out. I want you to go with me to my mom's in St. Louis. We can even go to Six Flags if you want to.”

I hugged him. “That's a great idea! I love Six Flags.”

“You think your mom will let you go? ”

I thought about it. “Mom has to work this weekend.” I knew she wouldn't care if I went to Six Flags. I'd done that with friends before. The overnight thing was something else, though. “She'll probably want to talk to your mom about having me spend the night. But I don't think she'll have a problem with it.”

His head dropped. Then he grinned at me. “Bailey, Mom won't be there. That's the whole point.”

I got it.

“She's going away on business, and I have a key to her apartment. Mom doesn't mind if I stay there when she's gone. We'll have the whole place to ourselves, babe. It will be perfect.” He threw his arms around me and hugged me.

“Whoo-hoo! PDA!” somebody shouted.

We un-hugged and stared at each other.

“You still want to do this, don't you?” He looked like a little kid, afraid he was going to be let down.

“Of course I do, Went.” I kissed him and said it again. “I do.”

 

“What's the big deal?” I was arguing with my mother—again. Poor Adam trotted between us like he was chasing tennis balls. After school, I'd waited for Mom to get home so I could hit her with Went's St. Louis proposal. Well, not
all
of his proposal. So far, things weren't going well, and all I'd said was that I wanted to go to St. Louis Saturday . . . and come back Sunday. “It's not like I've never been to Six Flags with a bunch of kids before,” I insisted.

“You've never stayed all night, though, Bailey. That's the part that worries me.”

“When we didn't stay the night last summer, you worried because we had to drive home so late,” I reminded her.

“I know.” She might have been thinking it over.

“It's really safer to stay the night,” I pressed.

“So who all's going?”

“You want a signed invitation list, Mom? I'm sixteen, not six.”

“That's also what worries me.”

Here is where it would get tricky. I didn't want to lie to her. Lies of omission maybe. But not outright lies.

“Is Went going?” she asked.

I tried not to react. “Yeah. I told you a bunch of kids were going. Males and females. Six Flags was coed last time I checked.” All true.

“I don't know, Bailey. I need details. I need to know where you'd stay. Whose mother invited kids to spend the night there?”

I was hoping she wouldn't ask that question. I'd told her, truthfully, that one of the moms had a place for us to crash. I'd just withheld the name of that mom in order to protect the so-far innocent. “Mrs. Smith,” I muttered.

“Went's mother? No wonder you didn't happen to mention that little detail.”

“Because I knew you'd be like this! And it's not fair that you'd judge her because she's divorced and Went's living with his dad. He used to live with her, you know. And now they've moved so he can spend time with his mother. And she wants to get to know his friends. And so she does this nice thing and invites us to her home, and what do you do? You automatically prejudge her that she's unfit to chaperone.” Words were coming to me at warp speed, and I was spitting them out just as fast, even though I knew as I said them that part of my speech stretched the truth so thin even Adam could see through it.

I stopped talking and picked up Adam. He felt heavier than when he'd come to us. Tears were leaking down my cheeks. I wasn't sure where they'd come from or why, but holding that terrier never failed to comfort me.

Mom walked over to Adam and me. She petted the dog for a minute. Then she put her arms around me. “I hate fighting with you, Bailey. Man, nothing wears me out more.”

I cried harder, but no sound came out. “Me too.”

She sighed. “You're right. As soon as you said it was Went's absentee mother, I got this image in my head of a wasted, mini-skirted, leather-skinned bleached blonde, a cigarette in one hand and a can of Schlitz in the other. I'm sorry. That was wrong.”

I forced myself to look at her. “Went says she's great.”

Mom looked like she was trying out for the Face Olympics. Her lips forced a weak smile that wouldn't stay up. “I'm sure she is. And I know I can trust you, Bailey.”

I turned to her, not sure I'd heard her right. “Are you saying . . . ?”

“I'm saying
please
be careful. I love you too much for you not to be.”

“I can go?” I still couldn't believe she'd come around. I thought . . . well, I wasn't sure what I'd thought. “I can go to Six Flags on Saturday and stay over?”

She laughed a little. “Yeah. But you better get out of here before I change my mind.”

I threw my arms around her. “Thanks, Mom.” Tears flooded my eyeballs again. I didn't know if they were part of the relief, the surprise, the excitement, the guilt, or the reality. I was going to St. Louis with Went to cross that next line.

Time either crept by like woolly worms crossing the highway or flew like eagles. There was nothing normal in my life—not time, not anything. On the last day of classes, Amber and I sat in study hall, but there was nothing to study. All I could do was stare out the window and try to imagine what was about to happen.

“So do you want to talk about it, or what?” Amber asked.

“Talk about what?” I knew she had to know. A few kids I didn't even like had come up and asked me about my St. Louis trip.

Amber raised one eyebrow. “I can't believe you didn't tell me about St. Louis, Bailey.” She sounded hurt, not angry.

I felt lousy for hurting her. “I'm sorry. I wanted to, Amber. I've missed talking to you. I mean, I know we've talked. But not
talk
talked.”

She shrugged. “Yeah. Not talking about Went kind of sliced the topics, huh?”

“I know you're not crazy about Went.” She didn't deny it, so I went on. “I didn't feel like I could talk to you about him. But you have no idea how much I wanted to.”

The study hall monitor walked by and gave us a dirty look. Too bad. It was the last day we'd ever spend at this school. What could they do to us now?

Amber smiled at me like the old Amber. “I'm sorry. You should be able to tell me anything, and you couldn't. That was my fault.” She scooted her chair closer. “So, tell me everything. Are you really going to St. Louis with Went?”

I nodded, giving her a look I figured was a cross between excitement and panic.

“What's Big D say about all this?”

“Mom's been pretty great. I mean, she doesn't know it will just be Went and me.”

“Or that you're planning to do it.”

“Right. But she knows we'll be staying the night at Went's mother's.”

Amber frowned. “And Went's mom is cool with this? So, what? Like, she'll show you to the spare bedroom and go back to hers?”

“Eeew! No! She's not going to be there.”

“Ah.” Amber nodded. “Are you sure you're ready for this, Bailey? I thought you wanted to wait until you were married.”

“I thought so, too . . . until Went.”

“Are you sure you're not just doing it for him, though? ”

“What do you mean?” I guess I raised my voice, because the monitor glared over at us.

“Don't get mad,” Amber whispered. “You'd be asking me the same question if I were the one about to round third and head for home.”

We laughed, and then Amber got serious again. “You know that when people say everybody's doing it, it's not true, right? You're not weird or immature or anything else if you don't have sex. Nothing says you have to go through with this.”

“I want to do this, Amber.” And I did. Maybe not for all the reasons I'd always thought I'd want to have sex for the first time. I'd pictured that moment often enough. I'd be wearing a beautiful white wedding dress and carrying a bouquet while my new husband carried me over the threshold, both of us eager and crazy in love.

“Well, I'm here for you,” Amber said finally. “You know that, right?”

I hugged her and felt those tears trying to leak out again. “Hey,” I said, shoving us apart and trying to joke us both out of it. “I'm not going away forever, you know. I'll be back Sunday.”

But the thought that raced through my head, and probably through Amber's, too, was—what would I be like when I came back on Sunday? What would Bailey Daley be like after crossing
this
line?

 

“Meet me in St. Louie, Louie!” Went and I belted out together as we left the city limits of Millet and turned onto the Interstate. Neither of us knew the real words to the song, so we sang whatever lyrics we felt like. We rolled down the windows so everybody in the state would know how happy we were.

Adam sat on my lap and stuck his head out the window. Went's dad had made us take the dog to his ex-wife's for the weekend. He said she needed a real taste of what it was like to raise a family. I didn't mind at all. “Doesn't your dad like Adam? ” I asked when we'd run out of St. Louis songs.

“Dad hates Adam. The dog may be housebroken at your house, but not ours.”

“You're kidding. Adam hasn't blown it at home for ages.” I got eye to eye with the little guy. “Adam, you'd better behave at Went's, you hear?”

“You got that right. Dad's threatening to dump Adam at the animal shelter.”

“He can't be serious!” I hugged Adam closer.

“He's serious. You don't know my dad.”

“Don't you worry, Adam,” I told him. “I won't let it happen.”

Went put his arm around my shoulder. “Come here, you.”

I undid my seat belt and slid to the middle, where somebody had conveniently installed a middle seat belt. From there, it was easy to lean my head on Went's shoulder. The day was perfect, sunny but not too hot, blue sky with artful wisps of white floating through. Went kissed the top of my head. “I love you, Bailey Daley.” It was the first time he'd said it. I'd known it was true. I knew how he felt. But he'd never said the words.

My throat closed. Those tears sprouted in my eyes again. But this time, there wasn't a bit of sadness in them. Only sheer, perfect joy. “I love you, too, Went Smith.”

 

We pulled into Went's mother's apartment complex around noon. The grounds reminded me of a Club Med vacation commercial—kidney-shaped swimming pools, couples hanging out poolside, guys shooting hoops. And the whole thing was walking distance from Six Flags. You could see the top of the roller coasters from the parking lot.

“This is nice,” I observed. I'd pictured a run-down, semi-scary apartment in downtown St. Louis or a dingy building with crackheads passed out in the stairwells. I guess I was as bad and judgmental as I'd accused Mom of being.

“Wait till you see the apartment.” Went snapped on Adam's leash, then led me by the hand up a flight of stairs—totally free of crackheads—to a big wooden door with “203” on it. The name above the doorbell was Waslynski, not Smith.

“Are you sure you've got the right apartment?” I tapped the gold nameplate.

“Mom went back to her maiden name.” He glanced both ways and then reached behind a bush and came up with a key. “Remind me to put it back when we leave.”