Swell (2 page)

I looked out toward the night sky. The wind was soft and sultry, whipping around my ears and filling my eyes with cool relief in contrast to the hot gym. My body filled with a sense of purpose, like everything was headed in the direction it was supposed to go.

Chapter 2

“Where ya wanna take her?” asked the Squeezer.

“Hillman’s. His parents are outta town,” said another voice, more nasal and gruff.

The Squeezer laughed, honking both boobs to the point of being painful. All I could do was gasp.

“Lemme tell him we’re coming over,” he said, letting go of my tender flesh to make a call. I could see the phone light-u
p as the Squeezer gabbed something about having a drunk girl in the car and wanting to take advantage of her.

≈

Dr. Gerald Rusch had been my dentist since I was 10. My mom picked him out of the
Guidebook to Dental Professionals
because he graduated from a
top dental program and had an interesting name. Being that he was the most popular dentist in our little town helped, and my mom knew he stood behind his reputation. A tall, thin man with salt and pepper hair and, of course, a beautiful smile (who knows a dentist with bad teeth?), Dr. Rusch soon looked after the oral health of everyone in my family, which meant me, my mom, and my dad.

“It just made sense to have one child after all that I went through,” my mom would lament, throwing her hand against her forehead in mock labor pain.

Because Dr. Rusch was my dentist, I knew about his son Christian well before we attended high school together. During the last five years of checkups and toothache appointments, I would sometimes see him helping the front office staff with filing and copying. Christian was two years older than me, and a big reason why I jumped when Dr. Rusch asked me to paint his waiting room tooth mural.

See, I’d been drawing and painting since I could pick up a pencil, entering art contests whenever and wherever possible. We lived just outside Laguna Beach, California, an artist’s colony-television show sensation, and the annual trek to the Festival of Arts was my most favorite thing ever. I lived, breathed, and died by paint. I loved when it got in my hair, down the front of my shirt, and under my fingernails, coloring each with a special hue all its own. By the time I hit 14, I’d won a couple of local contests, loads of art supplies, and was seriously looking into going to an art college after high school.

I began the mural the Saturday before school started. The office was closed, and Dr. Rusch was working in his study with Bettina, the office manager, sorting through insurance
paperwork
. I had my dad drive me over with my supplies, and here I was on the floor of the waiting room with a giant hanky on my head, kneeling on a sheet I’d carefully placed over the carpeting. That’s when someone knocked on the front door.

I didn’t think anyone heard the knock, until it grew louder. I went into Dr. Rusch’s office to let him know someone was at the door.

“That’d be Christian,” he said, rising from behind his large walnut desk and grabbing the office keys. I followed him down the hall and returned to my painting as he opened the door.

It had been some time since I’d seen Christian, and on this day he looked like someone I had never seen before but always knew. Tastefully dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch, extra tight, he sauntered into the office and immediately laid eyes on me. I brought my hand to the hanky, feeling its thin cotton and hating that it was on my head.

“Where’s the couch you need me to move?”

“It’s in here.” Dr. Rusch pointed to another office and then at me.

“Christian, do you know Rebecca Ionesco? She’s painting our new mural. You’ll be going to school together.”

Christian said nothing at first, so I broke the ice.

“We will… be going to school together. Hi!” I waved a little before grabbing my paintbrush and swirling it in the paint cup.

Christian said nothing, instead giving a little smile before heading directly into the office with the couch. So much for a courteous
hello
.

After that, I was sure Christian Rusch was the most snotty, overrated, look-at-me guy in school. The way he walked, held his books, ran track, and hung out at Jock Wall said it all. He was God’s Gift and wanted everyone to know it. But I couldn’t get him out of my head. Every moment I was at school, I would sneak peeks at him, plotting where his classes were and perusing old yearbooks in the library for his picture. Sometimes he made the paper because he won an award or something else spectacular. It seemed he could do no wrong, except ignore my existence.

I had given up my crush on Christian by Christmas, when I finished the tooth mural and Dr. Rusch had paid me right in front of him. He sat in a chair by the walnut desk, drinking a Coke and looking at me out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he had thought about me then, but it sure didn’t seem like it. Mr. Perfect would never want to give Ms. Artsy-Fartsy the time of day.

Even though
it was more than I wanted in the whole wide world, Christian dancing with me burst my bubble. All the shields I’d put up to protect me from the hurt of being ignored were knocked down.
Even though I was confused, the days following the toga dance left me with a serious case of boy on the brain.

I refused to eat much of what my mom tried to force-feed me, preferring to hide in my room and write in my journal. I wasn’t sure about how I really felt, except that my body buzzed with electricity whenever thoughts of Christian entered my mind. I was practically glowing with lightning bolts all weekend.

“Do you think he’ll remember me?” I asked Jenna, who sat on the end of my bed painting her toenails lime green.

“It was pretty dark in the gym.”

She kicked a pile of laundry onto the floor to give herself more room. I had a habit of not putting clean clothes away because I hated folding them. Besides, laundry on the bed kept me warmer in the winter than an extra blanket.

“Does it look like I’ve got fungus feet?” she asked, delaying a response to my concerns about Christian. Jenna liked playing with my mind.

“If you’re concerned about fungus feet, you should have picked another color. Now, can we get back to this very important problem I have?”

She put down the bottle of polish and politely folded her hands in her lap. “Beck, I’m sure he’ll remember you, kay?”

“But what about Monday?”

“He hangs out at Jock Wall. Just go up and talk to him.”

Jock Wall was a block of stucco bricks lined with benches where the popular kids hung out. I usually avoided walking by it, because the guys would hang over the wall and spit on the serfs like me below. I would have to walk by the wall on Monday to see if Christian was there. If he was, I would approach him.

“You might try asking Olivia Baskin. She ran track with him last year.” Jenna picked up the polish again and started on her left foot.

“Wasn’t she his girlfriend?” I recalled Olivia following Christian whenever, wherever possible around school. It was clear that she was in love with him. Then she was out for a week and after that she never followed him again.

“Naw. She wishes she was. But they were pretty close.”

I sighed and leaned back, plans for Monday swirling around my head like ghosts in a haunted mansion. There was so much to do besides figure out how I was going to approach Christian. Things like what the hell I would wear, how to do my hair, and if I really had any basis for thinking about any of this to begin with.

Monday came too quick. As I walked toward Jock Wall, I knew that I’d worn the wrong thing — I was encased in a yellow sweater dress that kept falling off my shoulders. Jenna said the color brought out my luscious dark highlights and enhanced my brown eyes. Instead, I felt like Tweedy Bird.

The wall was in my line of sight, its peach-colored stucco plastered with posters about the annual Senior Trip to Disneyland and last-minute yearbook orders. Several of the popular kids were already there.

It was easy to spot Jeff Hillman, a friend of Christian’s. A tuft of bright red hair had marked Hillman for life, topping-off a body that rippled in muscle and lean flesh. In spite of his manly attributes, he wasn’t my type and never would be. It wasn’t the freckles and pale skin, or the unnatural hair color. It was that he gave me the creeps whenever I saw him, like something was wrong but I couldn’t say exactly what.

A few of the rah-rah crowd stood nearby, including Devin Stewart, the head of Varsity Cheer. She was super-tall, with Superman-broad shoulders and muscular legs that looked like they belonged to a guy. There were rumors that she had to shave her legs twice a day because the hair on her body grew fast. Jenna thought Devin was a man.

I was cursing my Big Bird outfit because I couldn’t hide in it. What was I thinking? I should have worn taupe or gray, and it seemed everyone at Jock Wall could see me coming from miles away. I planned to walk by, glance over to see if Christian was there, and then sprint to my class if he wasn’t.

Not so fast, my yellow sausage casing dress was challenged by the steep incline of the hill. Even so, I tried to walk as fast as possible without ripping the dress up the back, my steps short and robotic. When it looked like Christian wasn’t there, I flitted past the wall with my head down. That’s when I ran into him… with my face.

I fell back on my sunny butt, books and purse flying in all directions. He crouched down to help gather my stuff as I brought my legs up to my body. The last thing I wanted was for Christian to see up my skirt.

He lifted me up by the hand. “If anyone asks, you could say we really did run into each other.” He was as tall as Devin, for sure, but being that he really was a man that didn’t seem so odd. Christian was one of those guys whose porcelain smooth skin never seemed tan, even in the Southern California sun, which only enhanced the milk chocolate brown hair that hung in a shag around his face. The perfect frame.

“You’ve got that right.” I straightened my body without looking too rigid. Inside I went completely concrete, holding solid so I wouldn’t slip up and accidentally burp or do something worse.

I could have said anything at that moment — something like, “How’s it going?” or “Thanks for helping me up.” No. Not me. I was the one with the big feet that fit perfectly in my mouth.

“Do you remember me?” My dress started falling off my shoulders again, revealing a white bra strap. It had never occurred to me to wear pretty bras, and I was clearly going to have to get with the Victoria’s Secret set or suffer the continuous hell of ugly lingerie. Christian kept his eyes on mine.

“I do. You’re a great dancer.”

I wondered if my crimson cheeks went with my yellow dress, because my face was burning up a new one.

“Thanks. So are you.”

Christian looked over at Hillman and his posse, who eyed me with suspicion like I was an alien from Planet Wrong who’d landed on their turf. In particular, Hillman had a kind of Sean Penn snarl on his face, hands in his pockets as he watched us.

“Come over with me for a minute,” he said.

Hillman didn’t change position as I approached the wall with Christian, who took out a sheet of paper and a pen. It felt like everyone wanted to talk about me, and not in a nice way.

“What’s your name and phone number?” It was funny that he didn’t know my name, given that his dad’s hands had been in my mouth since before puberty, and that I’d painted the tooth mural on the office wall, and even been introduced to him.

“Rebecca,” I stuttered.

“Most people have two or three names.” He paused to smile at me, pen in mid-air.

“Uh, yeah. Right. Ionesco.”

“Is that Italian?” People always asked me that. They figured that with my dark hair and eyes that I knew all about spaghetti and John Gotti.

“Romanian” I hoped to God he didn’t think I was a vampire or that my dad’s name was Vlad.

“I’m Christian Rusch.” He put out his hand to shake mine. It seemed so goofy. Of course
I knew his name
.

“I thought so,” I replied, releasing his warm hand and long fingers.

/////

I had dreamed about my first kiss, and although I never practiced on pillows, I’d spent time with my forearm, sucking the daylights out of the skin. Sometimes I left a little hickey and would tell my mom it was a bruise.

As for the reality of that kiss, it was definitely different than a date with my arm. Christian took me to a movie and then to the beach, where I ended up with his wine-soaked tongue in my mouth. It’s not every day that a girl’s first kiss tastes like Cabernet.

We were sitting on the wall that ran the length of beach overlooking a wooden pier. It figured that the lone light on the street was right above us, and even though nobody was around, I felt like I was on
Kissing With The Stars
.

Christian kept looking at me, and then reached for my face, holding it in his hands.

“Your face is so proportionate,” he whispered.

“I’ve never had anyone tell me that before.”