That’s probably another thing I should mention: I was one of the popular kids at Evergreen. This was partly because Claude Leon, my best friend and tennis partner, was the most popular person in my class and had been since fourth grade. And also, it was just how things worked out. I was good at sports. I dressed a certain way. I lived in a certain neighborhood. So those were the people I naturally hung out with.
Once the shock of her brother’s suicide wore off, my friends forgot about Antoinette. She was far away from us socially, being new and unknown and not being friends with anyone we were friends with. I never did tell anyone about going to her house the day of the suicide.
When things returned to normal, our group went back to our usual business of goofing around, having fun, and thinking up new ways to hook up with each other. In terms of romance, I had lagged behind my other friends. Plenty of girls liked me, or would have liked me if I liked them, but I was shy about these things. I hadn’t figured out how to close the deal and get an actual girlfriend.
Claude, who had been with super-hot Petra Roberts most of freshman year, had recently paired up with Hanna Sloan, who was the other great beauty of our grade. Maybe that was what held me back: watching my best friend work his way through all the most desirable girls in our school.
Now, though, as we were getting further into sophomore year, people began plotting to get me a girlfriend. “It’s a waste of a cute guy to have Gavin not be with someone,” Hanna told people.
After a lot of discussions, it was decided Grace Anderson was the girl I should be with. Grace was perfect for me, they said, never mind that we’d known each other since kindergarten and had barely spoken. That didn’t matter. Grace was getting more into boys now, and she was very cute, and also certain parts of her had “grown” recently. Most important: she and Hanna were practically best friends. And since Claude and I were best friends, it made for a logical match.
• • •
It was Claude who first brought it up. “Hey, Gavin,” he said, one day in the cafeteria. “What do you think of Grace?”
“Grace Anderson?” I said. “She’s okay.”
“Just okay?” said Claude. “Dude, she’s hot.”
Some of our other guy friends were sitting with us. They agreed. There was much murmuring about the hotness of Grace.
“I’m not sure she’s my type,” I said.
“What’s your type?” said someone else.
That was the thing. I was a sophomore. I didn’t really have a type. Not that I knew of.
“You should go out with her,” said Claude.
“With Grace?”
“Yeah,” he said. “She likes you.”
“How do you know?”
“Hanna told me.”
I shrugged.
“You should like her,” repeated Claude. “She’s cute. She’s nice. She’s got a hot body. What else do you want?”
The other guys agreed. I looked around at them. They were all nodding. They had talked about it. The girls had talked about it.
So that was that: Grace and I would be together. I was tall and blond and good at tennis. Grace was cute and was friends with Hanna. Riding my bike home, I resolved to make it happen. I would ask Grace out on a date. And then I would ask her to be my girlfriend.
• • •
But that night, in my room, I found myself thinking about Antoinette. She wasn’t nearly as good-looking as Grace. And it wasn’t like I really knew her. But she’d stuck in my head. It had been a month since her brother died. And several weeks since our conversation in the breezeway. But I’d never stopped thinking about her.
If I had to have a girlfriend, why not Antoinette? I began flipping through my cut-up book of landscape paintings. Was she my type? Could we do stuff together? Could I kiss her? Talking to her had been thrilling in some way. Talking to Grace, well, I had known her practically my whole life and I couldn’t remember a single thing she had ever said.
In bed it got worse. I would turn one way and think about Antoinette and then turn the other way and think about her some more. I thought about her weird clothes. I didn’t know if I could deal with that. Why couldn’t she just wear Nikes and jeans like everyone else? But in another way, I could respect it. She was being herself. She was making a statement. I’d never been friends with anyone like that. It made me curious. It made me want to talk to her more.
• • •
But the next morning, in the cold light of day, I felt differently. I saw the absurdity of thinking I could be with Antoinette. I barely knew her. She had weird friends. She smoked. She obviously didn’t snowboard or play tennis or do any of the things I did. Plus, her brother had committed suicide. What did that mean about the rest of her family? Probably nothing good.
No. It would never work. It was impossible. Grace was a much better fit. Grace and I had real things in common: friends, activities, history. She dressed right. She looked good. It just made more sense. It would be so much easier.
• • •
We still had to do it, though, Grace and I. We still had to officially get together. Our first attempt was at a basketball game. Several of us guys went, including Claude and Logan Hewitt. Grace and some other girls sat behind us in the bleachers. Claude elbowed me to move up to the girls’ bench and sit beside Grace, but I thought that would be awkward. There wasn’t room. And she was right behind me anyway. Her knees were touching my back. Wasn’t that being together, in a way?
After the game, I stood next to her outside while people waited for their rides. I had this idea that I would kiss her good-bye when her ride came. But when her mom’s car pulled up, I saw the stupidity of my plan. I couldn’t kiss her in front of her mother. So that didn’t work.
Then the next weekend, some of us went to Hanna’s to watch The Godfather. Grace and I sat together on the couch. This seemed like the perfect place to kiss her, but I waited too long and then Hanna’s little sister came in, and then someone ordered a pizza and I never got a chance.
Back at school, Claude pulled me aside. “Dude, what’s going on?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You gotta put the moves on Grace. You like her, right?”
“Of course I like her.”
“So put the moves on her.”
“I am. I mean, I’m trying.”
“Girls can only take so much hesitation. She’s admitted she likes you. And you’ve admitted you like her. So what’s stopping you?”
Fortunately, the next Friday, Logan Hewitt’s older sister had a party and a few of us sophomores were allowed to come. We were in the basement when Hanna decided that we should play spin the bottle. We were too old for this, but Hanna turned it into a joke, which made it acceptable. Plus, people were feeling sorry for Grace and me. Mostly for Grace because she was doing what she was supposed to, less for me, since I was the one holding things up.
Hanna made us form a circle. Then she took a Coke bottle, placed it in the middle, and gave it a spin. When it stopped, it was pointing at me.
“I got Gavin!” she said. “That’s perfect. Gavin, I pass you on to Grace.”
“What?” said someone.
“I said I’m passing Gavin on to Grace. Which means I get to go again.” Hanna snatched the bottle back.
“Can you do that?” said someone else.
“Of course you can do that!” said Hanna. “It’s a rule. You can pass your spin to someone else, but only once per game.”
Nobody had heard of this rule. But Hanna wanted Grace and me to get on with it, and this was the easiest way.
“And because that was the first spin,” continued Hanna, flashing everyone a sexy grin, “you guys have to go in the bedroom for extended minutes.”
There was more grumbling about Hanna’s made-up rules. But I stood up. Grace stood up too. We barely looked at each other as we slowly marched into the Hewitts’ basement bedroom, which was more like a storage room but did have a bed in it. I knew I couldn’t hesitate now, so I didn’t. As soon as I’d shut the door, I turned to Grace and kissed her. The main thing was to get it done, to seal the deal.
We made out for a solid five minutes, standing next to the door. After that Grace opened her eyes and smiled at me with relief. She made a gushy girly face and kissed me again. She began to touch my neck and run her hands through my hair.
After we made out standing up, we lay on the bed. Grace began to giggle, and at one point she rolled on top of me and pecked at my face, kissing me all over with her thin lips. As she did, I unfastened the buttons of her shirt. She had a fancy silk bra on. “Nice bra,” I whispered.
“Victoria’s Secret,” she whispered back.
We didn’t go any further than that. The important thing was that we stayed in the bedroom for nearly twenty minutes. Mostly kissing and rolling around on the bed. We didn’t talk much. It didn’t seem necessary. We were together now. We were a couple. I think we both wanted to think about that and get used to it. It was a pretty big change in your life.