At first when I email Kelsey about picking her up for our—well, yeah, it’s called a date, so for our date, I say that I can see about borrowing my mom’s car. She doesn’t bring up the license issue, which is good. But she tells me to ride my motorcycle.
You think I can’t ride on the back of a motorcycle? she asks in an email.
Of course not.
I’m not the wallflower you think I am.
I actually Google “wallflower” to see what she’s meaning.
I never said you were I reply.
Good. See you tonight.
But Kelsey was right: she can’t ride on the back of the motorcycle. Mr. Page greets me when I get to their house and then ends up asking me about riding with a helmet. Something I don’t do.
“I think you need to drive, Kelsey,” he says in a nice, friendly manner.
But the nice, friendly tone still doesn’t mean she has a choice.
In her parents’ other car, a four-door Honda, Kelsey apologizes for telling me to bring the bike.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I really need to get a helmet anyway. Or two.”
“So where are we going?”
She looks cute in her jeans and boots and jean jacket. It’s as if she dressed to go riding on a bike, looking a little tougher and more rugged than usual.
But she could never really quite look rugged.
“I was going to head to Solitary. Just park and walk around the downtown area a few dozen times.”
“Stop.”
She knows me well enough to know my sarcasm.
“I don’t know. I was thinking—well, wondering what you like to eat.”
“I haven’t had Mexican for a while.”
“Really? I know a great place in Asheville.”
“You mind going that far away?”
“Do you?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“When do you have to be home?”
Kelsey shrugs. “I don’t have a curfew. It never really comes up. Even though the guys just keep coming around asking me out for dates.”
“Maybe they’re just intimidated by that shy persona of yours.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Kelsey says with a laugh.
“I don’t think you’d want many of the guys at Harrington asking you out. Would you?”
“I think they know I’m not particularly interested,” she says, adding, “And that I’ve had my eyes on someone for a while.”
The statement surprises me. I want to say something in response, a joke or a witty remark, but I don’t want to make fun of what she just said.
She did something I rarely do—put herself out there for better or worse.
“It’s about time he noticed,” I finally say.
Kelsey looks at me with a whimsical sort of look. “Yeah, I’d say so.”
For a while I’m seventeen again.
I’m not with a dark-haired beauty chosen to be a town’s sacrifice for a reason I still don’t understand, a girl tortured and facing the future by herself.
I’m not with the Goth girl who has always acted one way because of hiding another way she felt, only to be revealed too late.
And I’m not with the older girl posing as a high school girl to lead me down a troubled path.
Instead I’m with a cute girl who looks her age and talks her age but also seems to be more than just another seventeen-year-old girl.
There’s something about her, something that continues to surprise me.
I don’t exactly know what it is.
After dinner, while we’re waiting on a tiny dessert I urged Kelsey to get and promised I’d help her eat, she brings up college. I guess this is the place to go to talk about the future.
“I’ve decided where I’m going to college,” she tells me in a way that seems like she’s been waiting all night to tell me.
“Where?”
“Guess.”
I guess a few schools in North Carolina, like UNC and Duke. She’s smart, and I know she has the grades to get in.
“Wrong state,” she says.
I keep guessing until I eventually give up.
“Covenant College,” Kelsey says.
I don’t say anything, and she asks if I know where that is.
“Yeah, sure. Downtown Chicago.”
“Surprised?”
I nod, because I am. “That’s a long ways from here.”
“It’s a great school.”
“I couldn’t get in there even if I had a million dollars and my dad was the school president.”
“Maybe I’ll meet some nice Midwestern boys like you.”
“Ha. Hopefully you’ll meet some nice Midwestern boys who aren’t like me.”
“What are you going to do about college?”
“I’m thinking I’ll just move to a big city. Start painting. Because, you know, I’m such a great artist.”
This makes her laugh. We get the chocolate thing, and Kelsey takes a couple of bites as I tell her what my father said.
“Who knows,” I tell her. “Maybe I’ll follow you to Chicago.”
She gives me a glance that doesn’t go away. “Uh-oh,” is all she says.
I know that Kelsey is suddenly acting all girly and strange when she pulls the car into the driveway and gets out. It should be me driving and walking her back to her home. But, oh well, nothing I can do about it. I know why she’s being distant and quiet.
The date involving a great dinner and a cheesy romantic comedy movie is about to end.
What happens at her doorstep?
Do I get invited in?
Am I supposed to give her a passionate kiss good night?
Maybe the past year leading up to this gives me the confidence I need to let things be. For a while.
I still believe that I’m no good for Kelsey. But she’ll go off to college, find a real man who can be her rock, and that will be it.
“Thanks,” she says in that little chirp of a voice I got to know in art class.
“Thank you—for driving. And for hanging out.”
“It was fun.”
We’re standing at her door, the light on, the crickets droning away. She’s watching, waiting, surely wondering.
“You’re a pretty awesome girl, Kelsey.”
I move over and kiss her gently on her cheek. Not in a brotherly sort of way. But in an attempt—at least it’s my attempt—to be a gentleman.
I look at her and smile at her in a way no brother is ever going to smile at his sister.
“See you on Monday.”
She nods, telling me good night.
I see her open the door and slip inside, then hear the door shut and lock.
I go back to my bike and sit on it for a moment.
What’s your plan now?
But I don’t have a plan. Not with Kelsey. No plan, no intention, no goal. Just a guy hanging out with an awesome girl in the midst of a mad, mad world.
That’s all. We’ll go from there.