Apparently, Romeo and Juliet spoke only 117 words to each other before they kissed for the first time. I know this useless bit of information because last year, when my ninth-grade English class read the play, Heather Simton—who some of my peers liked to call Heather Simpleton—counted.
“It just seemed way too fast to be believable,” she said.
“That’s because she was a slut,” Rick Vemond, one of the most popular kids in my grade—and one of its most dangerous assholes—blurted out from the last row. How he was so popular I could not understand. No, that’s not really true, I knew why. He was very handsome, with incredibly sexy dirty blond hair. And his girlfriend was Deidre Messier, a tall willowy figure. If you took away those two things, he would have lost a great deal of his appeal. Which also happened when he spoke.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Vemond. An insightful observation, as always,” our English teacher, Mr. Schneider, said. “Actually, at this point in the text, act 1, scene 5, after delivering the backstory of the families and setting the stage for things to come, the plot needs to be propelled forward. And more important, the kiss gives us an indication of the urgency of their love.”
Mr. Schneider seemed to be the last person on earth to understand love’s urgency. He was bald and round—not that chubby people with no hair can’t be in love. It’s just that everything he did, he did so slowly that urgency was simply not a word I would have ever used in relation to him. But I suppose you never know what love’s arrow will do to you—or when it will strike.
For example, the first time Simon kissed me we were out by the garage, smoking weed. Not quite as romantic as some fancy Elizabethan costume ball, but I’m no Juliet, and frankly, Simon does not have Romeo’s way with words.
Simon was doing more smoking than I was. I wasn’t really doing any. The stuff mostly just made me feel spacey, and I couldn’t seem to smoke without coughing. I wasn’t even sure how much Simon liked it, either. I suppose the best part about the whole thing was the way Simon looked at me while he held his breath after he took a hit. He would end up bugging his eyes out, or puffing up his cheeks, whatever, just to make me laugh. Which he always did.
“Come back here,” he said, and walked around the corner of the garage, beside the pile of old grass clippings. There wasn’t much room between the pile and the pricker bushes that grew between the trees.
“What?” I said as I stepped toward the pile, keeping my eye on the thorns. All my life I always seem to get caught in those things, and I didn’t want it to happen there with him. When I looked up from the thorns, he was standing really close and leaning down toward me. It was an odd sensation, exacerbated by the fact of my slightly less than average stature, which made him seem even taller. He looked like some kind of bird, a stork or something, bending toward me. I didn’t know what was happening and then he was kissing me. He pushed his tongue against my mouth. I kind of pulled away because it surprised me. But obviously I knew what to do, and so after a second I opened my mouth.
“You have to use your tongue,” he said.
“I am,” I told him. I admit, I was a bit defensive, but I didn’t like being told how to kiss. Granted, I didn’t have a whole ton of experience at it—but still, a girl likes to find her own way.
I think I had been waiting for Simon to kiss me from that first time I saw him and wanted to push his hair back, so I was glad it was finally game on. I grabbed his shirt, pulled him toward me, and went for it. I may have been a bit overeager because I think I made him gag a little, but things settled down after that and it was actually pretty fun in that gross kind of way.
I will confess now that I was very late to the whole sex thing. I am slightly embarrassed to admit this, but it’s simply a fact—after fifteen and a half years of life, this was my first real kiss. I had a few chances to make out before, most notably with this good-looking kid named Todd Scully after the fall choir concert, but up close he had bad breath, so I declined. There were a few other opportunities as well, but they never presented themselves in a way that I felt good about. Then, of course, when you don’t do something that you want to do—especially if everyone else is constantly doing it—it becomes even more difficult to break through. But smooching Simon helped me to see the reasons behind why I never did it before. It was much easier to admit that in the past I had simply been afraid—which for someone like me, who does not like to show that particular emotion, had been a challenge. But now, with our faces mashed firmly together, I was in the club. All in all, this was perhaps one of the three most exciting and pleasurable things that had ever happened to me.
After that, whenever I would go over to Maxine’s and Simon was there, Maxine and I would hang out for a while, and then I would make some kind of excuse and go to the bathroom or down to the kitchen to get a Coke, and on the way back, Simon’s door would be open and I’d pop in and say hello. Usually he was sitting on the futon mattress that was bent up like a couch on the floor. He was often messing with his phone. I’d go sit next to him on the futon and we’d just start kissing. Usually we’d say a few things first, such as, “How’s it going?” or something clever like that—generally it was way less than 117 words. Then we’d begin kissing. But we didn’t always speak first. Sometimes I just went over to the couch and sat down next to him. After a few minutes I’d head back to Maxine’s room—she never asked where I’d been.
I didn’t think she even knew about our extracurricular activity, and then one day I walked back into her room and she was reading horoscopes from one of those ridiculous teen magazines.
“What’s your sign?” she said after I flopped on the bed beside her.
“Sagittarius.”
She was quiet for a bit while she read.
“Says here you’re going on a journey soon, and being a Sag”—her voice changed to sound all moody and mysterious—“let your natural inquisitiveness be your guide.” She was silent again while she read some more. When she spoke again she was just herself. “Oh, and romance is peaking around the eighteenth of the month. So I guess you’ll want to make sure Simon is around and doesn’t get detention or anything like that.”
I’m not a big blusher, but I could feel my cheeks getting red.
“It’s cool,” Maxine said. “He’s good people. But make sure that it’s just kissing.” Then she smiled that big open smile of hers.
“What’s September 24?” I asked her.
“Um, let’s see . . .” She consulted her magazine. “Ah, Libra. The scales of justice.”
Some justice, I thought.
“Shall I read on?” Maxine asked.
“No, doesn’t matter,” I lied to her.
At home things were the same. Dinner at six thirty, clean the kitchen, avoid the parents. They acted like they always had, as if there wasn’t some eight-year-old Libra child who lived somewhere in town who was my dad’s kid. Then one day I swear I saw him—Thomas.
The day after school let out for the summer, I was at the mall with Maxine. I’d hardly noticed school the last few weeks of class. It didn’t seem to matter; I basically did just the same in my finals as I had all semester. I don’t know what that says about how much attention school usually gets from me, but it was done and now I was free. At least my body was free; my mind was still the prisoner of this eight-year-old I had never met.
Simon wasn’t with us at the mall. He never went out with us. Maxine and I were eating hot pretzels from Auntie Molly’s, sitting on a bench outside the Sunglass Hut, when this skinny kid with short brown hair, carrying what was obviously a new baseball glove, went zipping past. There was no way to tell for sure, but he sort of looked like my dad. I have only ever seen one picture of my dad as a little kid—he was sitting on a split-rail fence with a really sweet smile on his face. My dad has always had a lovely smile—he’s lucky. But it was more the feeling I got when I saw the kid in the mall than the way he looked. A chill went down my spine. I got up to follow him.
“Where are you going?” Maxine said. She jumped up and chased after me.
I didn’t say anything as I shadowed the boy. It was pretty crowded, but it was fairly easy to keep up with him. It was odd that an eight-year-old was alone in the mall, but you could tell by the way he walked that he knew where he was going. He glided up the escalator. We followed.
“What are we doing?” Maxine asked.
I didn’t answer, not only because I didn’t know what to say, but because I couldn’t really talk. There was a large lump in my throat. When the boy got off the escalator, he swung back and went into a day spa called Dashing Diva. He went to a woman who was getting her nails done and showed her the mitt. She could have been his mother; she was about the right age. She was pretty; she had long, straw-colored hair. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, so it seemed kind of odd that she was getting her nails done. I just stood looking at them through the glass. Maxine was beside me. She wasn’t talking anymore. All of a sudden a guy joined them; maybe he was the husband. He arrived as if he’d been running to catch up. He tousled the boy’s hair. The boy didn’t seem to notice; he just continued to show the woman the glove. When they looked out toward the front of the shop, I bolted.
Then, a few weeks later, I thought I saw Thomas again. Same feeling up my spine, same lump in my throat, only this time it was a different kid. He was kind of chubby, but with blond hair—he even had glasses. I was walking down Elm Street with my mother, on our way back from picking up flowers for some charity event thing she was cohosting. The boy was going the other way, right past us, beside an older boy. It had never occurred to me that Thomas could have brothers or sisters. I stopped in my tracks.
“Come on, sweetheart,” my mother said. “We’re late, we’ve got to get home.”
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just start going up to random kids and asking them who their dad was.
And that was another thing: I didn’t know if this Thomas person knew that my dad was his dad. It was one more of the many things my parents forgot to talk about when they sat us down to tell us everything. What the hell did the kid know, or think? A lot of people were affected by this onetime fling.
When we got back to the house, I told my mom I was going over to Maxine’s.
“How come she never comes over here?” I had been wondering when she would finally ask this.
“She will. Can I go?”
My mom was already deep into her flower arrangements for the charity event that night. I think she was glad to see me leave.
Part of the pleasure of going to Maxine’s house was the walk over. Since it was away from town and on a side street, traffic was much lighter, and I never passed anyone I knew on the way. I was anyone I wanted to be.
One block had a bunch of old trees that formed a canopy over the road, and as I came out of the tunnel of leaves, the sun was shining. I slowed way down and moved as little as I could without actually stopping. I was watching my shadow hardly move. It was a childish game, but it was also quite peaceful. When I sped up again, it was disappointing in a way, and at the same time, I felt really powerful. If there had been any ants crawling across the sidewalk, I might have held my shoe over them for an instant before I let them live. I am not an ant crusher.
I cut across Maxine’s front yard and went up the two steps of her stoop. Simon answered the door. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said The Ramones on the front. It was too small for him. His long arms stuck out like beanpoles. I looked down and his feet were bare. He had exceedingly, elegantly long and tapering toes. Wow.
“Maxine’s not here,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “Where’d she go?”
“She’s at the store with my mother.”
I kind of stood there on the stoop for a minute. I wasn’t sure what to do. I mean, I had come over to see Maxine, right? I had always come to see Maxine. That I ended up kissing Simon for a little while most times was purely a bonus.
“You can come in if you want,” Simon said.
I shrugged. “All right.”
He turned and walked away, leaving me there. I watched him walk up the stairs as I closed the door. He moved like his joints were connected by rubber bands, everything all loose and swinging. It was a cool walk. Very Simon.
I didn’t know exactly what to do, so I followed him. By the time I got upstairs, he was sitting in his usual position on the futon. He was picking his nails the way he sometimes did. The window was open a few inches. There was a nice breeze coming in. I’d never noticed before that his room had always felt kind of stuffy, but not on this day. I sat down next to him in my normal spot. Then Simon smiled at me—which felt very nice. Whereas Maxine had a big open smile, Simon had the sweetest, goofiest grin. There were two fine faces for smiling in that family, that’s for sure.
“You know, your sister didn’t tell me about you,” I said.
“Didn’t tell you what about me?”
“That you existed. I didn’t know she had a brother until you walked into the kitchen that day.”
“And you’re telling me this now because . . . ?”
“Um, I don’t know. Maybe ’cause we’re alone.”
“Well, it’s not surprising she didn’t tell you. She doesn’t really notice anyone but herself.”
“That’s not very nice. She likes you.”
“I like her too,” he said. “She’s my sister. I love her. I wasn’t being mean—it’s just true. She’s kind of wrapped up in her own thing.”
“Well.” I shrugged. “Isn’t everybody?”
Simon gave me one of his soulful gazes. “True that,” he said. Then he leaned in to kiss me.
I guess he could tell I had other things on my mind, because he stopped after a bit.
“You okay?” He leaned back in order to have a good Simon look at me.
“I have a brother, too,” I said.
“Oh, yeah?” Simon looked at me. “Older or younger?”
“He’s eight.”
Simon nodded.
“I also have a sister who’s thirteen,” I said.
It was no big deal to him. Why should it be? Lots of people have sisters and brothers.
I got up and went to the window. It could have used some curtains. Poor guy—how did he sleep in the morning with no blinds or shade? There were tons of fingerprints on the glass.
“Your window’s open,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s a nice day.”
He came over and stood next to me to look out. He pressed his fingers up against the glass and leaned his nose close to it, as if he was looking through a store window at Christmastime.
Now I knew how all the fingerprints had gotten there. We were both looking out, up into the blue sky. There were very few clouds on the horizon.
“Ever wish you could just fly away?” I asked him.
“All the time,” Simon said.