Something Like Normal(9)

I walk down the street toward the Shamrock, the biker bar on the corner of Delmar and Estero. Apart from bikers, the only people who go there are leather-skinned old beach rats and brittle-haired women who think they’re still young and hot. The music is dirtball rock, the floor is sticky, and the beer is served in plastic cups, but they’re good about looking the other way when you “forget” your ID.

Going through the open doorway, I pass Gage Darnell. He was a year ahead of me at school, but dropped out when he turned eighteen. He’s leaving with a familiar-looking girl with a fake tan, fake nails, fake blond hair, and probably fake boobs. She looks like an Internet porn star—and not necessarily in a good way. I went to school with her, too, but her name escapes me. Angel? Amber? Something strip clubby, I think.

“Hey, Travis, welcome home.” Gage offers his fist to bump, then continues on his way. The blonde wiggles her fingers at me, then latches on to his arm. I might have slept with her.

Perched on barstools are a couple more girls around my age. The one wearing cutoff shorts and cowboy boots is Lacey Ellison. She’s not especially hot and wears too much makeup, but we didn’t call her Easy-E in high school for nothing. She’s flirting with a biker sporting a Hells Angels emblem on his leather vest and a dirty blond goatee. Lacey giggles at something he says and touches the snake tattoo on his forearm.

Beside her is a girl with a mass of light brown hair pulled into one of those sexy-messy knots. Compared to Lacey she’s overdressed; the only skin showing is a narrow stripe between the top of her threadbare Levi’s and a washed-out blue T-shirt. She doesn’t acknowledge me—not even a little chin lift—as I claim the empty stool next to her and order a beer, and for some reason, this bothers me. Probably because I’m drunk. “Nice night, huh?”

Her green eyes meet mine in the Guinness mirror behind the bar and it feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room. I’ve never slept with this girl, but she was the first I remember wanting.

Harper Gray.

The first time I kissed her was at a middle school slumber party Paige threw when her parents went to Key West, leaving her alone for the weekend. It was at the end of summer and I was new, because my dad had just been traded to Tampa Bay, but I’d already made friends with most of the guys on the eighth-grade football team at early practice. The lure of alcohol and girls wearing pajamas was too strong to resist, so we crashed the party. After raiding the liquor cabinet, Paige decided it was time to play seven minutes in heaven. I went first, using the spinner from an old board game, and it landed on Harper.

“Your seven minutes start… now,” Paige said as Harper followed me into the laundry room. I shut the door and she leaned against the washing machine, looking scared. I remember the sharp scent of the bleach mixed with the fabric smell of clean laundry. “I’m Travis.”

“I know.” Her eyes flicked shyly down to our feet—we were both wearing beat-up old Chucks and it seemed like a sign—then up at me. “I’m Harper.”

I already knew, too.

“Like Harper Lee?” I was showing off. I hadn’t read To Kill a Mockingbird, but it was on my mom’s bookshelf, so I knew the author’s name.

“No,” she said. “Charley Harper.”

“Oh, um…”

“He’s an artist.”

“Cool.” My scope of small talk completely played out, I decided to go in for the kiss. Our noses bumped the first time and I could hear the shaky nervousness in her laugh. The second time we got it right, but I forgot to take the sour apple gum out of my mouth, so my tongue was all over the place as I tried to kiss her and hide the gum at the same time. It started out sloppy and ridiculous, but eventually we got it right and I remember my fingers sliding through the waves of her hair.

Nothing else happened. We just stood there, pressed against each other, kissing. Until Paige’s voice told us our time was up. I didn’t want to stop and was about to suggest we drop out of the game, when the door flew open. Paige grabbed Harper by the wrist and pulled her back out to the party.

She was tangled in a whispering knot of girls when I came out of the laundry room. All my friends wanted the details of what happened between me and Harper. They expected something good, so I embellished. Said she let me feel her up. By Monday, my lie had taken on a life of its own. People were saying Harper had sex with all the guys who crashed Paige’s party. Calling her a slut. I don’t know how it got so out of control, and I could have told everyone what really happened, but I didn’t. When she came up to me in the cafeteria, I ignored her. By the following weekend, Paige was my girlfriend.

“Hey, Charley Harper, can I buy you a beer?” It’s not the smoothest opening line I’ve ever used, but I’m not feeling smooth. I’m jagged. And drunk.

She lifts her nearly full cup but won’t look at me. “Got one, thanks.”

Okay.

“You might not remember me, but—”

“Travis Stephenson,” she interrupts, her words like a roadblock. “Welcome home. Now leave me alone.”

Damn, she’s hostile.

“What’s your problem?”

Harper stares at me a moment and I’m mesmerized by the green of her eyes. So I don’t see it coming when she punches me in the face. “Are you kidding me?”