Read The Things You Kiss Goodbye Online
Authors: Leslie Connor
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #Physical & Emotional Abuse, #Dating & Sex, #Death & Dying
The Things You Kiss Goodbye
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UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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For Judy and Jerry—
Thank you for your love
.
Thank you for sharing the pond
.
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T
HE NIGHT
I
CUT OFF MY HAIR, MY MOTHER TOLD MY
father to leave. That’s when it hit me. Somehow I’d reached the mud at the bottom the pond. The scissors making it through my braid was just the landing.
I had hair that was a lifetime of long, and it was the kind of hair you
tame
. (My Greek genes made it wild, coarse, and curly.) Momma’s remedy for my mop was olive oil with rosemary—Old World conditioner, but it worked. She’d massage it through the strands. Then she’d weave me a thick and perfect braid that was so long, the tip brushed my waist.
I had always liked the scent of the oil and the feel of her hands. But this night, I was on edge because of Cowboy, and
Momma and Bampas were on edge because of me. After my mother left the room, the braid seemed heavy down my back. In my bed, it made my nightgown damp, twisted around me—
tugged
. Then came the bad memory.
I don’t remember reaching for the scissors. But I do remember how hard it was to close the blades over the braid—I realized it somewhere in the middle. But I finished what I’d started. I looked at that rope of hair in my hand. There was an elastic band on my night table. I twisted it onto the chopped end and let the whole thing drop.
I turned off my lamp and slid back between my ice-clean sheets, tucked my knees to my chest and begged for a dream—even a bad one—if I could just find Cowboy there.
My light came on again later—a brutal burst of whiteness. Oh, how my mother screamed when she saw what I had done.
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I
MET
B
RADY
C
ULLEN IN THE LAST QUARTER OF OUR SOPHOMORE
year. Back then, he was just a sweet, skinny kid. Before we ever spoke, I’d seen him smile at me in the hallway—a bunch of times. Each time, he’d dip his head and look at his feet. Each time, I’d looked over my shoulder to see if maybe he had his eye on someone else. I didn’t think boys like Brady were interested in girls like me. To be sure, he was different from the boys I’d been messing around with. Come to think of it, if he’d known about those guys, we might have never happened.
If you stood us side by side, this is what you’d have seen: Brady in a game jersey, the cuffs of his khakis scrunching
over the tops of his basketball sneakers; me in combat boots, a black leather mini, low-cut sweater, and a long whip of braided hair running down my back. Add a Steampunk choker, and maybe a henna tattoo wherever there was a patch of bare skin, and you’re done.
Yeah, yeah—it’s all fine and PC to say that what you wear doesn’t matter, that anything goes and it’s what’s inside that counts. That should be true. But come on, who doesn’t judge a book by the cover? Besides, it wasn’t just our clothes. Brady also had a crowd to hang with. I was an outsider at my school, though not so much by my own choice.
I was also a dying breed, and it was my own parents who were killing me. Their weapon? Our Greek heritage, which, in my case, came loaded with dusty ideas about what I should be allowed to do and
not
do—and I am talking about everything from curfews to dating to life. If you asked me, my parents were about a century behind the rest of the world. I was constantly trying to crash through to this millennium. I wanted to bring Momma and Bampas with me—but only as far the front door, where I’d say something like “Love you. Don’t wait up.”
Yeah. In my dreams. That was the biggest drag—trying to get out of the house. My little brothers had longer leashes than I did. I had pulled out of my collar and had a good run in recent months. But that was over. I was reeled in tight again
and not because I was in trouble. Not grounded. Not even fighting with Mamma and Bampas. It was really all because of Julia.
She was my awesome, bold and crazy, kick-ass friend and fellow “dancerina.” We had met in the kinder class at a studio across town. We took lessons together for years. By the time Jules and I turned fifteen, we were the pirouetting diehards of the advanced classes. Everyone else had left for high school sports or theater. So Julia and I took ninety minutes’ worth of lessons three days a week—just the two of us. Then we helped with the beginners’ classes, being “Miss Julia” and “Miss Bettina.” We were serious dancers. But Julia also became serious about stripping off her tights in the dressing room after class, zipping into her mean-heeled boots, and pulling on a miniskirt so she could go down the block to mingle with the local free-range kids. Loyal friend that I was, I unpinned my coiled braid and I went with her.
I began to be semi-honest with Momma about class times, and she didn’t question. She didn’t confront me about the cups of coffee I sometimes had when I climbed into the car. I wasn’t trying to be bold by showing her what I’d been up to; I was trying to be a little bit forthcoming. I always made it back to the steps in front of the studio by five forty-five for my ride. Momma made sure that if Bampas was coming to get me instead of her, I knew it. She had small ways of going to
bat for me; she’d won me the right to wear mascara. “Three swipes and you’re out the door,” she’d said. Of course I’d add a few layers once I was on the bus.
My coffee cups were also a diversion. Julia and I did not sit still in iron-backed bistro chairs drinking lattes after dance class. We wandered. I smoked my first cigarette behind that coffee shop. My first French kiss happened in the city cemetery just across the street—and so did my second and third. I think Julia might have had another first with her back up against a granite monument; she never really confessed.
I did some parent-free shopping on that block. I netted a leather jacket at the Goodwill store, and an armful of sweaters that zipped up the chest (or
down
the chest) and a few T-shirts to slash up. One of the free-range girls sold me a pair of vintage combat boots for fifty bucks. I was so psyched to get them I threw in a pair of earrings I had made from vintage beads and glove buttons. I snuck my treasures home in my ballet bag and revealed my purchases slowly. Often, I came out of my room late for breakfast on school mornings so there would be no time to change. I thought my look was funky; Momma and Bampas called it “filthy.” There was yelling. There was drama. I learned to leave the house looking “respectable.” Then I’d fix that either on my way to school or in a stall in the girl’s bathroom.
Julia also met the fringy friends at night. I only made
it out a handful of times—snuck out through my bedroom window at the back of the house. (You have to love a sprawling Mediterranean-style ranch.) Then I hiked it through the garden, past our little horseshoe of rabbit hutches, and along my father’s property all the way down to River Road to catch whatever ride Jules had arranged. Little did my father know that the very swath his mowing crew kept cut so that he could walk to the river and “do his thinking” had become my escape hatch. Never mind my inappropriate clothes; for this, Momma and Bampas would have grounded me for a year. I tried to be courteous. I even left them notes to say that I had not been kidnapped just in case they discovered that the punched-up pillows under my covers were not really me. I also had my younger brothers, Favian and Avel, in my pocket. They had caught me the first time. Scared the snot out of me.
I’d heard the sucking sound as the window of the bedroom next to mine slid open. Both boy-heads had appeared. “Bettina! Hey! Where are you going?” The strains and giggles of one ten-year-old and a seven-year-old can fill the air like a damn chorus.
“Hey! Shush! Shush!” I’d pointed a finger at them to shut them up. It was only because Momma and Bampas had music playing in the living room that my cover was not instantly blown. “Don’t tell! I’ll owe you one. Think of something you want,” I’d strained in my loudest whisper.
“You have to let us stay up
way
late next time you babysit!” Avel had returned.
“Double dishes of ice cream, with the works—”
“Fine! Now close the window, you dorks!” My mistake—they both loved being called names—don’t ask me why—and they’d howled with laughter that night. I’d wasted a beat wondering if I should turn back. But I’d wanted to be out so badly. I’d turned to go up the garden steps. I’d slipped and touched one hand down and kicked one leg up behind me.
“Underpants!” Favian had taunted.
“Shh! You bad little boys!” I had hissed at them. I’d thumped my finger off my lip. “Shut the window!” The window had sucked closed and I’d faced it just long enough to see two plaid pajama butts pressed up against the glass. I’d marched away, snorting with laughter.
My parents never caught me, not that night, not any other—I was that good. I probably should have tried to get out more often because by January of my sophomore year, my free run was over. Julia’s family moved away as suddenly as a door bangs shut. There went the bolder half of the advanced dance class. I got crammed into the new “advanced” dance class, which seemed not very advanced at all. It had more bodies in it, but they were twelve- and thirteen-year-old bodies. I felt big and bored. The coffee shop scene didn’t have the same draw for me, not without Julia to lead. I wasn’t even
sure how to hang with those kids now that she wasn’t there.
With Favian and Avel getting older and going to activities of their own, Bampas soon started complaining that my dance studio hours were disruptive to the family. He also began to grumble that he wasn’t getting enough for his dollar anymore. So, before he could insist on it, I quit.
Bampas, and even Momma, seemed to forget that Julia had been my only real friend, and the dancing, my only place away from home. For weeks, I stood in my combats boots, lonely as hell. That’s about the time Brady Cullen started flashing grins at me. Then damned, if one day, he hadn’t somehow learned my name.