The House of Eve (28)

“It’s okay. Aunt Marie left for work.”

He looked at my papers scattered across the Formica kitchen table. “What are you up to?”

“Studying for my We Rise exams, the program I told you about. The English I got, it’s math that’s driving me nuts.”

He took a seat. “Let me see.”

I picked up the worksheet packet and a pencil and carried it over to the sofa and handed it to him. Shimmy examined it carefully.

“I’ve been on the same problem for a half hour. I just want to give up. It’s so hard.” I flopped down next to him.

“It’s not, actually. How are you with calculating sine, cosine and tangent?”

“Shaky at best.”

“Okay, an easy way to remember is to first break it down to SOH, CAH and TOA. I thrive when I have a mnemonic device.”

“What’s that?”

“You know, when you put words to letters or create a song to help you remember the order of things.”

“Oh, right. I never made it sound all fancy, but I know what you mean.” I smirked, knocking my knee against his, and then I left it there as Shimmy continued.

“For trig I think of it as ‘The Old Archaeologist Sat on His Coat and Hat.’ Get it?”

I thought for a minute, “TOA, SOH and CAH.”

“Yup, memorize that.” He took my pencil out of my hand. “Can I write on this?”

“Sure.”

Shimmy worked through the next three problems, explaining the relationship between angles slowly, and the cramp around my brain started to clear.

“I think I got it.”

“It just takes practice. Math is muscle memory.” He dropped the worksheet in my lap, and then I felt his hand brush against my knee. The warmth generated from his fingertips made the room go fuzzy.

“I see why you want to be an accountant. You’re good at this,” I said softly.

“Numbers just make sense.” And then he was leaning his face toward mine and time stood still. My brain went to vapor as his nose grazed mine, and then his mouth sank against my lips. It was the sweetest second of my life, but then Leap flashed across my eyelids. Leap’s hands pushed my face against his, Leap, Leap, Leap, and I yanked away from Shimmy.

“I’m so sorry.” His eyes crinkled with confusion.

“No, I’m sorry. It’s just—” My voice faded away.

“You are just so beautiful.”

No boy had ever called me beautiful before.

“You are all I can think about,” he murmured, and those words swept away the remains of my resistance to him. I blinked Leap away, forgetting that he was my first kiss, and breathed in Shimmy, pretending that this moment with him was the one that counted.

He took my right hand. “Don’t disappear like that again. You’ve driven me plumb crazy.”

“I won’t.”

Then he held my chin and I pressed in. His tongue tasted like Wrigley’s Doublemint gum, and I left my eyes open, so that I could see that it was Shimmy and not Leap pressing his sweet lips against mine.

I was kissing a boy. A boy who liked me.

Outside, there was a crash, then a boom, and the lights flickered off. We pulled apart and Shimmy sprang to his feet.

“It’s just the power going out. Happens often in a storm.” I stood, rummaged around in Aunt Marie’s kitchen drawer for a match and lit the candle she kept over the sink. Shimmy came up behind me and spun me against his chest. We stared at each other in the hazy, soft light. As he bent down to kiss me again, clunky footsteps crashed on the hall stairs.

“Damn it. That’s probably Pop. He’s been upstairs drinking with Mr. Leroy. Ma is going to kill me if we are late again.” Shimmy moved away from me toward the door. “Can I come for you tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know if I can get away.”

“Well. I’ll be in the alley at eight. I’ll wait fifteen minutes.” He kissed my cheek, and as I stood in the door, I heard him yell, “Pop, you all right?”

When I looked down the stairs, his father was slumped on the landing, feet stretched out wide. The whole hallway smelled of whiskey, or maybe gin. Blood flushed through Shimmy’s face and neck and he shook his head. I watched as he reached down to grab his father under the arm and heave him up.

“Come on, Pop, Ma’s waiting. Are you hurt?”

“Oh-kay,” he slurred, patting Shimmy’s face. “Good boy.”

Shimmy held his dad around the waist and carefully guided him down the last flight of stairs. I closed the apartment door and then walked over to the window. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and I wiped the condensation on the glass with my shirtsleeve.

On the street Shimmy opened the passenger door for his father, put a protective hand over his head and gently helped him into the car. The motion was as tender as putting a baby to bed. From the looks of things, I gathered that Shimmy did this often. He was a good boy. A good boy who liked me, even though we were so different. Shimmy stopped at the driver’s-side door of his father’s fine car and looked up. He waved and I pressed my hand against the window toward him.

In that moment, I knew that I wanted nothing more than to give what was budding between us a chance. Despite the odds, and despite Aunt Marie’s warning.