The Year of the Beasts (6 page)

chapter

seven

Tessa wondered if that
one night of kissing Jasper had made her look different because after two weeks of kissing Charlie, everyone agreed on one thing: Lulu looked different.

Lulu looked light on her feet and translucent, as though she were made of Bohemian glass and caught the light in a special way. And when she walked, she
glided
. Or, she was always dancing. She had a secret skip that couldn’t be ignored by anyone. Lulu glowed with all the kissing that she had done with Charlie. And Lulu kissed Charlie whenever she could. Lulu kissed him on the porch. On the dock. In the diner. At the movies. In his barn. In his beat up old car. She kissed him in public for everyone to see. They kissed in a way that made sure everyone around them knew how they felt.

At the breakfast table, their parents would tease Lulu until she turned red, and when her protests didn’t make them stop, she would resign herself to shoveling spoonful after spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“You are in love, Lulu,” their father would say.

“Your very first love.” Their mother would sigh.

Then Tessa watched as their parents would laugh and play with each others’ fingers as they looked at each other tenderly. As though the magic of Lulu’s first love had been catching and had rekindled something inside of them that they had misplaced for a while. Her father’s piercings would sparkle. Her mother’s tattoos would ripple with color and almost come to life.

Tessa knew that she could have said something about her own kiss. Sometimes at night, in bed, she would kiss the tips of her own fingers and remember Jasper’s lips. Sometimes she wondered about her one kiss with him; wondered whether he would agree that it was the only kiss that had ever seemed to matter.

That year, no one was going to summer camp because of the economy. Almost all of the kids would be staying in town, forced to entertain themselves. Celina invited the sisters over every day. After breakfast, Tessa and Lulu hopped on their bikes and wound their way over. Tessa wished that sometimes Celina would not remember to invite Lulu. But since that didn’t work, Tessa would remind Lulu that she could always hang out with her own friends.

“But they don’t understand about boys like Celina and you do,” Lulu said.

And that would always win Tessa over.

They would leave their house early in the morning and wind over to Main Street to the café where they would order an espresso drink. Then they would window-shop and look at all the new antique items in the windows, things that most people they knew wouldn’t buy, but that they coveted: a Victrola, a stained-glass window, a sewing machine. The girls would fill imaginary houses with those antiques, only to lose them to the people who came up from the city for the summer. Those people had money and would rent the pretty houses and borrow boats to motor along the river. They would say they wanted to stay forever, but they always left with no fuss after Labor Day.

Tired of looping Main Street, the girls would head over to Celina’s for lunch, arriving in time for summer salad or grilled cheese sandwiches or watermelon slices. And the rest of the day was filled with sun and iced tea and throwing the Frisbee around.

Sometimes Tessa’s eyes would linger on the woods, wondering if she would see Jasper again at all that summer, or if she would have to wait for the first day of school. If she waited till then, she was afraid she would ignore him along with everyone else. But she would want to pull at the weird sweater he sported and hide out at the corner undesirable table near the garbage cans and read a strange book with him that no one else would have ever heard of. That is what drew her to him.

“What’s that?” Celina asked.

Tessa caught the Frisbee, and saw, in the woods, a glint of something. She threw it to Lulu.

“I don’t see anything,” she said. But she knew that it was Jasper. He was watching them from the trees. He was wearing brown, blending in, except for his sunglasses, which kept catching the light as he moved his head from side to side, his eyes following the arc of the Frisbee.

“Oh my God,” Celina said starting to laugh. “It’s that weirdo, Jasper.”

Tessa froze. She knew that everyone thought that about him, but while her heart had jumped and thrilled at the sound of his name, Celina’s heart had recoiled. Tessa knew that Jasper was weird, but to hear someone say it out loud made her stumble as she jumped for the disc. She fell to the grass facing the dirt before she rolled onto her back. Celina and Lulu ran to her, not because they were worried that she was hurt, but because they were giggling.

“He’s watching us. Do you think he’s a pervert?” Celina asked.

“What’s a pervert, exactly?” Lulu asked.

“It’s like when you watch people and it turns you on and stuff,” Celina said.

“Well, maybe I’m a pervert,” Lulu said.

“We’re definitely perverts, but we’re not weirdo perverts like Jasper,” Celina said.

“Maybe we should ask him to join us?” Tessa said. Even though they were laughing at him, Tessa wanted to feel his lips on hers again.

“Don’t be ridiculous! Jasper Kleine doesn’t hang out with anyone. He barely talks!” Celina said. “Besides, I don’t want cooties.”

“Is there something wrong with him?” Lulu asked.

“He might have been dropped on his head or had measles or something and that affected his social skills,” Celina said.

“I think we’re too old for cooties,” Tessa said. She had kissed him and she hadn’t gotten cooties. None of them had had them since elementary school.

“He’s still there,” Celina said. “I don’t want him watching us.”

Tessa got up.

“I’ll get rid of him,” Tessa said. “I’ll make him go away.”

She walked, making sure that her walk looked normal. She didn’t want to run. She didn’t want to fly. It seemed like forever, but she finally arrived at the tree that he was leaning against.

“Hey,” Jasper said.

“Hey,” Tessa said. She was glad her back was to the girls. They couldn’t see that she was excited to be standing near him. She fingered the bark on the tree.

“So, you’re creeping us out standing over here,” Tessa said.

“Do I creep you out?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“That’s good,” Jasper said.

“Yeah. So, about the staring,” Tessa said. “People don’t like that.”

“Yeah,” Jasper said. “I’m not good with people.”

“You’re good with me,” Tessa said.

“You think so?” Jasper said.

Tessa smiled at him.

“Tessa!” Celina was calling her. “Come on!”

“I gotta go,” Tessa said. “You should go do something else.”

Jasper blinked. He licked his lips. Tessa took her finger and touched his lips.

“Meet me later,” he said.

“OK,” she said, as she turned to run away from him. She was flushed when she met back up with Celina and Lulu who were now lounging on the patio furniture.

“What did he say?” Celina asked.

“He said sorry,” Tessa said. “He won’t stand there again.”

Then Celina and Lulu changed the subject, but Tessa only heard every sixth word, because her mind was filled with only thoughts of Jasper.

Tessa began kissing Jasper in secret whenever she had the chance, and not one person said that she looked any different. No one teased her that she was in love. No one cooed and cawed as though her first love was as cute as a passel of puppies. No one sighed around her or smiled.

But Tessa
felt
different. She was blooming, too. She could tell it was true when she caught sight of herself in mirrors and windows.

At first she didn’t think she liked him at all. She just liked the secret of him. Because whenever Tessa was in a room with Charlie and he cozied up to Lulu, Tessa hurt. She couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t the one that Charlie wanted to be close to all the time, when she always wanted to sit next to him, stare at him, talk to him. But then sometimes, she felt differently about that; and then when she was with Jasper alone in the woods, she couldn’t imagine any other eyes than his.

She wasn’t sure what real love felt like, but when she lay in the woods with Jasper and they would stare up at the sunlight pouring down through the trees, she would marvel at the powerful thing she felt. It was dark under those trees, but when there was a breeze, the leaves would rustle and the light—when it managed to break through—would stab her and then disappear. It was the same as what she had begun to feel for Jasper; like she’d been stabbed with a sudden light.

Sometimes a deer would come close to them, oblivious that they lay there among the leaves. A twig would crack, and the deer would turn and notice them. Both human and beast would stay very still and stare until after a while, the deer would turn at a noise further along and move elegantly away.

Then they would wrap their arms around each other and pull close. Silence surrounded them. Their breath would fall in time with each other. Their eyes would say everything and their lips would only kiss. Their fingers would find each other and hold fast.