Chapter Seven

 

Kimba

 

 

“Y’all mighty quiet back there,” Kayla says from the front seat, catching my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Everything go okay tonight?”

“Oh, yeah. So much fun.”

“For sure. It was great.”

The replies rush out of us, piling on top of each other. Ezra and I watch each other from the corners of our eyes, secret smiles etched onto kiss-puffy lips. Mona’s mother picked her up and took her home. Kayla came at ten o’clock on the dot to get us. We’re in the back, separated by a decent distance, but our fingers twine on the seat between us.

“So what happened with Jeremy?” Kayla asks, her tone tilting up in that irritating way, like she’s patting my head.

Ezra’s smile wobbles. I squeeze his fingers until he looks at me. I roll my eyes and smile, waiting for a real grin to come back to his face.

“Did you do it like I told you?” Kayla asks.

“I didn’t kiss Jeremy.” I stretch my eyes at her in the mirror. “Just drop it, Zee.”

“All right,” she says, carefully maneuvering her pride and joy into our driveway. “You’re starting high school in a few months. What are you waiting for?”

The perfect moment. The perfect person. That’s what I had tonight.

“Hmmm.” Kayla frowns at the garage door lifting to reveal my parents’ Mercedes. “Mama and Daddy are already home.”

The steel and chrome gleams in the overhead light of the garage. Kayla turns, propping one arm on the passenger seat and splitting a look between Ezra and me. “Out. The both of you. Tell them I’ll be home by midnight.”

“Where you going?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest and settling back like I’m not leaving until she talks.

“Nunya,” she says, a wicked grin spreading her lips.

“Tommy.” Exasperation makes me suck my teeth. “I thought you were done with him. You guys break up once a week.”

“I decide when I’m done,” she says. “Now get outta my ride.”

Ezra climbs out immediately. I open my door and get out, but lean into the open window of the passenger side. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I’m not going to a convent, so I’m sure there will be plenty of things you wouldn’t do.”

“Whatever, Zee.” I tap the roof of the car and watch her taillights when she pulls out and drives off.

Ezra stands in my driveway. He glances up the street and huffs a breath. Mrs. Washington stands on her porch watering the row of plants marching down her steps. Really? At this time of night? She uses those plants as an excuse to get the 411 when something’s going down in the neighborhood.

Ezra takes my hand and leads me into the garage. He doesn’t lower the door and doesn’t let my hand go.

“Tonight…was…” He shakes his head and frowns.

Frowns? I thought it was perfect. I want to kiss him again right now. Did he not feel the same?

“Did I…did I do something wrong?” I ask. “Was it—”

“No.” Ezra links our fingers and holds my gaze. “The opposite. It was exactly right. The best first kiss ever.”

Relieved breath whooshes from my chest, and our smiles meet in the middle, between us.

“I was just thinking,” he says. “You’re my best friend.” He looks up expectantly, leaving me space to respond.

“Yeah. Same. You’re mine, too. My best friend, I mean. You know that.”

“I was thinking about Tommy and Kayla. And all the people who break up and get back together and break up again. I don’t want us to be like that.”

“Are we…are we together? I know we kissed, but I wasn’t sure if—”

“I like you, Tru,” he says softly, his eyes lowered to the garage floor. “If you don’t feel the same way then—”

“I do.” I step closer and grab his other hand. “That’s how I feel.”

His smile comes on slowly, pinching at the corners like he’s trying to contain it. “Okay. Good.”

He sobers and glances up and pulls our hands between our chests. “I don’t ever want something stupid to ruin our friendship. People break up all the time, and it freaks me out that something might…change, and then we wouldn’t be friends.”

“Yeah. I get that.” I bite my lip and nod.

“So, pact.”

“Pact?” I laugh. “Like the pacts we made when we were kids? Like we wouldn’t ever summon the Candy Man? Or when we were seven, that I wouldn’t tell anyone where you buried that candy pop ring?”

“You take that information to the grave, Kimba Allen,” he says with false gravity. “You crossed your heart and everything.”

“I’ll never tell.” My chuckle settles into a smile. “So what’s this pact?”

His eyes trace my face, rest on my lips and send flutters through my belly. He holds his pinky finger out to me.

“Our pact is that we’ll always be friends,” he says, his voice quiet, sure. “That nothing will come between us, not even each other.”

Not even each other.

I’m not completely sure what that means, but I hook my finger with his. “Pact.”

“We should kiss on it,” he says, tugging me closer by my pinky.

I’m breathless, waiting for our lips to touch and for that feeling I had in the bathroom to take over my whole body again.

“Damn you, Ruth!” Mr. Stern’s angry voice travels from inside my house when our lips are separated by just a breath.

“Let me explain,” Ezra’s mother says, her words reaching us in the garage.

“You can’t explain this!” he shouts back. “We’re leaving, and that’s final.”

Leaving?

Our wide eyes connect, fear and panic rising inside me at the threat of Ezra’s leaving. We hear the front door open so violently it slams against the house. Hurried footfalls pound down the steps. Leaving my house, Mr. Stern almost walks right past the open garage, but double-takes when he sees us inside. Fury twists his features.

“Come on, Ezra,” he snaps. “We’re going home.”

“But, Dad, I—”

“Now, Ezra!” his father roars so loudly I’m sure Mrs. Washington got an earful while fake-watering her plants.

“Okay. Okay.” Ezra drops my hand and leans forward to kiss me quickly. It’s just a peck, but maybe he feels the little thrill like I do, because he lingers. He presses closer and slips his tongue inside. It feels good and right. I lift my hand to touch the thick curls at his nape.

“Ezra!” Mr. Stern yells from their porch across the street. “I’m not telling you again. Come. Now.”

“Ezra,” Mrs. Stern says, watching us through the open garage door. “Listen to your father. Come home.”

“Okay.” Ezra walks toward his mother, but turns at the last minute and glances at me over his shoulder, his eyes serious.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says softly with his mother standing there waiting.

I nod, a strange feeling unfolding inside of me as my parents’ raised voices reach me from inside the house.

“Okay. Tomorrow.”

Mrs. Stern’s face is tear-streaked and her hair is mussed, unusual because her appearance is always neat. Her mouth trembling, she looks at me for a long moment before speaking.

“Goodbye, Kimba,” she says and touches Ezra’s shoulder, urging him to walk away.

I close the garage and step cautiously through the kitchen door, being as quiet as I can in case I catch fragments of the argument.

“That’s not fair, Joe,” my mother says, tears in her voice. “How could you even…”

It goes quiet in the living room, a listening quiet.

“Tru?” she asks abruptly. “Is that you?”

I sigh and drag my feet from the kitchen to the base of the stairs in the foyer. My parents stand on opposite sides of the room, a gulf between them. My father’s whiskey decanter sits on the coffee table, a rare sight since they don’t drink much. Broken glass litters the bricks in front of the fireplace.

“What’s happening?” I ask. “The Sterns—”

“Are not our friends,” my father says harshly. “Stay away from them.”

“No.” It comes out before I even realize it, but I refuse to apologize. “Whatever you and the Sterns are fighting about, I don’t care, but Ezra—”

“What did I say, Kimba?” my father growls, his face so distorted by rage that I don’t even recognize him.

“But Daddy—”

“Go to your room,” Mama says, her voice soft and firm and unyielding.

“Mama, I—”

“Go to your room!” she screams, tears leaking from beneath her closed eyelids. “For God’s sake, can you for once just do what you’re told and stay out of grown folks’ business? Go to your damn room, Kimba!”

Mama never curses at me. I fight back my own tears and run up the steps. Their argument resumes downstairs, but muted, deliberately low-voiced and hiding. I run to their room and grab the phone on their bedside table. I could dial Ezra’s number in my sleep. My fingers fly over the keypad without any thought, but the line is busy. I try again and again, but I can’t get through. After a few minutes, I go to my room and flop onto my bed, not even bothering to wrap my hair or take off my dress.

It feels like I’ve lived a year in the span of a night. I don’t know what’s going on between our parents, but I do know what’s going on between Ezra and me. We are beginning. I kissed my best friend and things will never be the same. Whatever happens between our folks, we have each other. And we’ll always be friends.

In the morning, I wake up to sunlight pouring through my open window. My mouth is cottony, my dress is wrinkled, and I’m still wearing the shoes I thought all night were a little too tight. I kick them off, slide from the bed and find my flip flops. I don’t even bother to change, but dash down the stairs and out the front door.

I come to a halt right on my porch. Mrs. Stern stands in their driveway loading suitcases into the trunk of their car. Ezra is tossing a duffle bag into the back seat when he sees me. He stops, glances at his mother and crosses the yard to meet me. My heart see-saws, happy to see him and scared to see him go.

“Ezra,” Mrs. Stern says firmly. “We need to go.”

He throws her an angry look, ignores her and comes up onto the porch. “Hey,” he says, his voice subdued.

“Hey.” I lick my lips and ask the obvious question. “W-w-where are you g-g-going?”

The harshness leaves his face and he reaches for my hand. “To New York.”

“New York?” I ask, my chest tightening. “But camp’s not for another t-t-two weeks.”

Each summer, Ezra goes to Jewish summer camp near his bubbe. Even though she passed away, he was still planning to go this year.

“We’re going early.” A muscle in his jaw tightens. “Mama says we need to get away. My father’s not coming with us.”

“Why can’t you stay here?” I ask, my voice plaintive, almost begging.

Ezra shrugs, a frown collapsing between his brows again. “They won’t let me.”

“But y-y-you’ll be back, right?” I bite my tongue until tears prick my eyes. I hate how my words won’t come out when I need them most—when it’s most important.

“I’ll be back.” He glances around. His mother walks into their house, but leaves the car running. No one is out, not even Mrs. Washington. The neighborhood allows us a rare slice of privacy.

Ezra touches his forehead to mine and cups my neck.

The tears overflow, sliding down my cheeks and salting the corners of my mouth. I’m losing something. I’m losing him. I know it. Even though he says he’ll be back. I just know…

“Don’t go.” It’s a wet whisper that I can’t hold back. “Ezra, I have a bad feeling. Like I won’t ever see you again.”

Even saying it, the words corkscrew right through my heart.

“It’s only for the summer,” he says, pulling back and lifting my chin, giving me a smile I know is forced. “I’ll be back before school starts. You think I’d miss our freshman year in high school?”

I hesitate, but shake my head. “Ezra, kiss me.”

He searches my face for a second, looks around, up the street that’s never this quiet, this empty on a Saturday morning, and leans forward to press our lips together, slipping his tongue into my mouth. We’re still tentative, barely sure we’re doing it right, our lips and tongues clinging and wet and sweet. I thought it might have been the music or the decorations, the dance or the moment that made last night’s kiss magical, but it’s none of those things.

It’s us.

That magic is still there when the only music is the distant buzz of someone cutting their lawn one street over. Still there when the mood lighting is nothing more than sunshine.

“Ezra,” Mrs. Stern says.

We break our kiss and look up. She’s at the car, elbows leaned on the roof on the driver’s side. Her gaze flicks between us, her eyes sad and red-rimmed. “We have to go now, son.”

The lump in my throat swells, hot and huge, and I refuse to release his hand for a second. I throw my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. His skinny arms tighten around me, and I feel his tears on my neck, too.

Don’t go.

I want to make him stay, to beg him not to leave, to not ignore this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, but Mrs. Stern honks the horn and climbs behind the steering wheel.

I love you, Ez.

It sounds ridiculous even in my own head, in my thoughts. We’re thirteen. What do we know about love? The kiss, these feelings are so new, I can’t make myself form the words, so I say the one word that will always mean the same thing to us no matter what.

“Pact,” I whisper.

Ezra nods, sniffs and slowly lets me go, running his eyes over my face like maybe he thinks it’s the last time, too. “Pact.”