Other Words for Love (18 page)

It was loose now, and I was nervous as his hands moved to my waistband. I felt it sliding south and I thought of Idalis floating in the pool and Del saying
Don’t you wish
.

Blake was edging lower on the bed and I knew what he was about to do. It was the thing that people other than Idalis kept quiet or giggled about, the thing that was supposedly safe since it wouldn’t get me pregnant, the thing that supposedly bypassed all the Catholic rules.

“Don’t be scared, Ari,” he said. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

Then the bottom half of my bikini was lying on the carpet. Blake was between my legs and it definitely didn’t hurt. I felt his lips and his tongue and his thick hair brushing against the soft inside of my thighs, and after a while there was a warm burst in the center of my body that flowed to my head and made noises come out of my mouth. They were like the sounds I heard through Evelyn and Patrick’s bedroom wall, but I buried my face in my arm so that they wouldn’t be as loud.

I kept my eyes shut against my arm, thinking that this was amazing and incredible, like devouring an entire box of chocolate all alone. It was sweet and delicious and I just couldn’t help myself. But if anybody found out, I’d have to pretend that I could never ever ever do such a sinful thing.

seventeen

One
of the four bathrooms had a showerhead that looked like a mail slot in somebody’s front door. It was a metal square with a rectangular opening and I almost expected a Con Edison bill to fall out.

Water flowed over me in a steady stream as I listened to Blake banging around in the bathroom next door. I’d rushed in here from the bedroom, saying I was saturated in chlorine and I needed some shampoo immediately, even though that was just a lame excuse.

I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t speak. I was excited and elated and embarrassed all at once.

But I couldn’t hide forever. I lingered in the shower until my hands wrinkled, then I wrapped a towel around myself and tiptoed down the hall. I ran into Blake, who was wet from the shower too. A towel was tied around his waist and his necklace skimmed his bare chest. He was so handsome, but I still couldn’t look at him, even when he pressed his forehead against mine.

“You make such cute little noises,” he said.

My cheeks flushed. I could have died. “I have to get dressed,” I told him, but he caught my elbow as I walked away.

“Hey,” he said gently. “What’s wrong?”

He smelled of Irish Spring. I just stood there. “Nothing,” I said.

He lifted my chin. “You think we did something bad?”

Yes. No. Maybe. “I don’t know.”

“Ari,” he said with a laugh. “We didn’t. And I wouldn’t do it for just anybody. I don’t get involved with someone unless I see a future.”

A future
. The idea that what happened tonight could lead to a Park Slope house and a hammock and kids with the bluest eyes made everything seem okay.

So I relaxed. I smiled. I danced alone around the bedroom while I changed into my clothes. Then we were in the car, where the top was down and my hair flowed in the breeze and everything felt perfect.

I thought I came home at a reasonable hour. It wasn’t quite as reasonable as the time I usually came home, but it wasn’t all that late. I didn’t expect Mom to ambush me.

“Where were you?” she said.

I had just walked through the front door into the living room and I was startled at the sound of her deep voice in the pitch dark. I heard the click of a lamp and there she was, sitting on the couch with her arms folded and her legs crossed.

My eyes nervously searched the room. I saw the hole in the La-Z-Boy, a sealed pack of Pall Malls on the coffee table. “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“Where do you think? They pulled a body out of the East River tonight and he had to go to Manhattan.” She reached for her cigarettes. “So where were you?”

I shrugged. I wondered if I was glowing and she’d figure everything out. “With Blake,” I said.

She peeled plastic from the Pall Malls, slid out a cigarette, and tossed the pack onto the table. “I know that. Where exactly were you with Blake?”

“In the Hamptons,” I said, and my voice sounded weak and small.

Mom flicked her lighter. “And what were you doing there all this time?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She dragged on her cigarette and patted the couch. I sat beside her even though I just wanted to go upstairs and think about Blake.

“You’re getting too serious,” she said.

Here we go, I thought. Then I got defensive. “Why don’t you like him?” I asked.

“I never said I didn’t like him,” Mom answered calmly. “He’s very nice. He’s respectful. I can see that he was brought up well. But you’re my daughter and my concern is for you. You’re too young to be serious about anyone.”

Too young. Too serious. Too everything. “He thinks we have a future together,” I said, and I thought I sounded mature and rational, but Mom didn’t—she laughed as if I was an idiot.

“Ariadne, he has no idea what he wants. He’s a young boy.”

“He is not. He’ll be twenty-one in November. You were only twenty-three when you married Dad.”

“But that was 1957. It’s a different world now … women have much more opportunity today. You,” she said, pointing a finger at me, “have much more opportunity than I ever did. You don’t know how lucky you are. And Blake better not be filling your head with all this
future
shit. It’s just a ploy to get you in the sack.” She leaned forward, staring into my eyes like they were two crystal balls. “He hasn’t gotten you in the sack, has he?”

I wondered what she could see. Roses on a bedspread, a soft white comforter, a pool with a scorpion lurking at the bottom. “No,” I said, and I didn’t think it was a lie because
in the sack
meant going all the way, and Blake and I had only gone part of the way so far.

She settled into the couch and puffed on her cigarette. “Good. I’m glad to hear it. Because guys Blake’s age are flighty—they’ll tell you anything to get laid and then they move on to the next victim. There are some girls who can handle that—Evelyn, for example. She used to break up with one and find another without batting an eyelash. But you’re not like Evelyn, and if this kid does anything to hurt you, I’ll chop off his nuts and shove them down his throat.” She snuffed out her cigarette in an ashtray. “And you tell him to bring you home earlier from now on. Understand?”

I understood. I understood that I would never tell her anything about Blake again and that my head hurt for the first time in months. “I’m going to bed now, Mom. I think I’m getting a migraine.”

She wouldn’t let me go to bed. She brought me to the kitchen, where she watched while I swallowed my medicine. Then she gave me a glass of warm milk and kissed my cheek.

“Good night,” she said, and when she was gone, I wiped my cheek with a napkin and poured the milk down the sink.

Summer invited me to her house the next afternoon, which was surprising. I hadn’t seen her once since school had ended, and she hadn’t returned the four messages I’d left with Tina. But I missed her enough to forget all that and to ask Dad for a ride from Flatbush to Park Slope.

He dropped me off and waved to Tina before heading to work. I walked past her as she crouched on her little lawn, wearing a sun visor and plucking weeds.

“Hi, Ari,” she said. “Long time no see. Go ahead inside—Summer’s upstairs.”

I slipped into the foyer and peeked into Jeff’s library with its crowded bookshelves and Tiffany lamps. I heard Fleetwood Mac and I followed the sound to Summer’s bedroom, where she was sitting in a chair with one foot perched on her desk. She was polishing her toenails and didn’t see me.

I stood in the doorway and glanced around at her bedroom. It looked like it had been completely redecorated since the last time I’d been here. It was so fancy, so elegant. There was a paneled bed made of bleached wood set between two antique-looking night tables, a matching wardrobe chest, and taupe wallpaper speckled with shiny silver roses. The wallpaper matched the comforter on the bed, which had decorative pillows in the shape of circles and squares. Everything was perfect, like something from a fairy tale, and I wished I could sleep in a fairy tale instead of on Evelyn’s rickety old canopy bed from when Lyndon Johnson was president.

“Your room is fantastic,” I said, even though I had to force the words from my throat.

Summer looked up from her toes. She was wearing a short denim skirt with a pink halter top and indigo eye shadow, and she was as stunning as the room. But I remembered that I had Blake and he thought I was
much prettier
, which meant more to me than a fancy bedroom.

“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry I haven’t called lately. I’ve been busy.”

I guessed she’d been busy with Casey, so I accepted the excuse. Female code and all. “No problem. I’ve been busy too.”

She leaned back in her chair. “I broke up with Casey last week.”

Surprised, I took a seat on her windowsill and watched as she pointed to the tattoo on her ankle. The
C
had been changed to an
S
so that now she was wearing her own initials.

“They did a good job,” I said. “But I hope they used a clean needle.”

“Of course they did, Ari. I got it done at a very reputable place on Bleecker Street a few days ago. I went there after a meeting that my mother and I catered at Ellis and Hummel,” she said, and I tried not to react. I just nodded and crossed my legs as she flopped on her bed and hugged a pillow to her chest. “I think your boyfriend’s father is gorgeous, by the way.”

And my boyfriend’s father thinks you’re beautiful, I thought. But I didn’t say it because she had a mischievous look on her face that didn’t need encouragement.

“Forget it, Summer. He’s old.”

She rubbed one leg slowly across her comforter. “Not really. He’s forty-seven.”

“How would
you
know?” I asked.

“He told me. I talk to him all the time.… Stan’s a friendly person.”

She called him Stan.
I
didn’t even call him Stan. He must have given her special permission, and I guessed he only did that for girls he considered beautiful. “Right,” I said, and Summer flipped over onto her back and stared at her ceiling fan.

“Ari,” she began. “Are you sleeping with Blake yet?”

I looked out the window; Tina was lugging a fertilizer bag down the stairs. “Why are you asking?”

She shrugged. “I was just wondering about … what he does and … what’s normal for most guys. I mean … I dumped Casey because he was losing respect for me. He wanted a certain position all the time, not just once in a while, and I don’t think that a guy really cares about you if he doesn’t even look at your face while you’re making love.”

That image made me uncomfortable. “But you said that position was strangely exciting.”

Summer shifted onto her stomach, resting her face on her fists. “Not every single time.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I’ll bet Blake looks at your face. I’ve talked to him a few times at Stan’s parties and I think he’s a real gentleman. He always holds the door for me and he never even swears. He treats me with respect … like a man is supposed to treat a lady.”

“That’s how he is,” I said proudly, and for the first time in my life, I knew that Summer envied me, that I had something she wanted. I felt victorious, but I tried not to act that way. She’d given herself to a guy who wouldn’t even look at her face; she didn’t need to get her feelings hurt again. “But the other stuff you asked about … I don’t know. We haven’t gotten that far.”

“Jesus,” she said. “After all these months? He really
is
a gentleman … Casey demanded sex after just a few dates.”

I’d never known any of this—that Casey wasn’t a gentleman, that he demanded things. Now I wasn’t sure what to say, but it didn’t matter because she changed the subject. She opened a dresser drawer, took out a letter from Hollister, and told me that she’d been approved to graduate early and was going to work full-time with Tina from January until college started next September. Then Tina called Summer from downstairs, asking for help with the twisted garden hose, and I was alone.

I walked around the room, examining Summer’s pretty things: the carvings on her headboard, the old jewelry box with the spinning ballerina on her dresser. I glanced inside the drawer that she’d left open. I saw a lacy black bra, a purple velvet diary, and a silver bracelet engraved with the initials
M.G
.

Leigh’s bracelet. The one she’d lost at the party at the Winter Garden. I couldn’t believe it. I was furious. Leigh was desperate for that bracelet, and Summer had been holding it hostage all this time. I knew that Summer could be inconsiderate, but I’d never suspected that she was utterly heartless. I’d even defended her to Leigh.
She wouldn’t do something like that
. I snatched the bracelet out of the drawer, holding it in my sweaty fist. My head was pounding and I was tired all of a sudden. A minute later Summer came back, smiling, completely unaware that she’d been found out.

“What’s this?” I asked, dangling the bracelet in front of her.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “It turned up last week. I was going to tell you.”

She wasn’t going to tell me. And I was sure that she’d found it eons ago, the night of the Winter Garden party. Still, she stayed cool now, concocting a story—something about the bracelet getting tangled in a tablecloth that Tina hadn’t used for ages.

“You’re lying,” I said. “You did this because you hate Leigh.”

She slammed her drawer. “Why shouldn’t I hate her? Remember what she said when we were at that club in the city?
You don’t want people to think you’re a slut
. I had enough of that crap in public school. And
you,
” she said, pointing an acrylic nail at me. “You betrayed me, Ari. I always stuck by you, and I was always there for you when you needed me, but you weren’t on my side against that weirdo and her bitch mother. It’s unbelievable that they’re related to Blake, because they’re nothing like him.”

I supposed she had a valid point about sticking by me and all, but I ignored that. I was so annoyed by the adoring look in her eyes when she spoke Blake’s name that I couldn’t be reasonable. “Stop talking about him,” I said. “You don’t know anything about him.”

She folded her arms and let out a snarky laugh. “Neither do you.”

“He’s my
boyfriend,
” I said. “I
love
him.”

Now she really laughed. “Oh, please. You don’t love him. You barely know him. You haven’t even slept with him. It’s just a case of limerence, like that silly boy in seventh grade who kept a collection of my hair.”

Limerence
. That was the word I couldn’t remember. The fact that she’d compare me to a poem-writing, hair-collecting seventh grader was just too much.

“Well,” I said. “I wonder what Blake will say when I tell him what you did to his cousin. I know you have a high opinion of him, but I’m sure he won’t think very much of you.”

She chewed on her lip, staring at me for a second. Worry spread across her face but it quickly changed into disgust. “I don’t know who you think you are,” she said. “You’ve got this idea that you’re something special because you landed a guy who’s completely out of your league. But you won’t have him forever, Ari. He’ll figure it out.”