All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(65)

If I went slow enough, I was allowed to touch him almost everywhere. Almost. He said, “Slow down,” so many times that even when he let me go faster, I went slow to tease him. A different game. To make him say, “Faster.”

One night in the meadow, we kissed until our lips were raw, and my T-shirt was off and my panties were wet under my skirt from rubbing against his thigh. He would run his hand up my legs, but he was too nervous to touch me there. Finally, he let me unbuckle his belt and take him in my hand. I went slow, so slow, until he was breathing hard and his voice was deep in his throat when he said, “Wavy, you’re driving me outta my mind.”

“You said slow,” I whispered in his ear.

Laughing, he squeezed my arm hard enough to hurt, and said, “Goddamn, I know I said slow, but that’s not what I meant. You’re gonna kill me if you keep doing it that way.”

I didn’t kill him, but I made him beg, sweaty and gasping. He didn’t even beg for anything. He was just begging, with my name in between. “Please, Wavy, please,” until his hips lifted off the quilt and he came. A strange word for it, like he was leaving somewhere else and arriving in the meadow with me.

Summer played games, too. It changed time, changed fast and slow.

Secretly, I knew, Kellen wanted to go fast. He said, “No, don’t. We can’t, sweetheart.” Alone with me, he turned his back while I went swimming, unless I kept my T-shirt and panties on. When Donal came swimming under the full moon, though, I took off all my clothes to swim, and Kellen watched me. I came out of the tank naked and went to him, trailing water through the grass. When I put my arms around him and stamped my wet shape on his T-shirt, he didn’t say, “No, don’t.” He said, “Oh, Wavy,” in his begging voice. He ran his hands down my slippery sides to my hips, and kissed me until Donal said, “Ew, gross! No suck-face!”

Summer had so many tricks. The nights lasted longer than the days, even though the angle of the Earth’s axis meant that was impossible. The night couldn’t be longer, but summer made it seem that way. Summer sneaked time for me, taking a minute from February, three minutes from English class in March, ten whole minutes from a boring Thursday in April. Summer stole time to give me another hour under the stars with Kellen.

The only time summer slowed down was for the two weeks at Aunt Brenda’s house. Time stolen from me instead of for me.

The night before Aunt Brenda picked us up was the Fourth of July. Kellen bought fireworks: rockets for Donal and sparklers for Sandy and me. Then we took the bike around the lake and back to Kellen’s house. He let me lie on top of him on the sofa and he kissed me for so long. Nothing more than that, even though his heart pounded under my hand.

“I better take you home soon so you’ll be ready when your aunt comes in the morning,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, we better.”

I pressed my leg between his, where Orion’s belt kept him closed up in his jeans. I loved how kissing made me soft between my legs, but it made him hard in the same place. It was wonderful magic.

Kellen groaned and said, “You need to sleep. I need to sleep. I gotta go pick up that wrecked Knucklehead tomorrow.”

I went but not before I left him a message. Once he had the bike started, I darted back into his bedroom. Going down on my knees on the linoleum tiles—so much like a classroom—I dug into his nightstand and found the magazine. I’d looked at it so many times, it opened to the page I wanted. The pleasure I wanted. I laid it on his pillow and ran back out to the bike.

Would he understand the message? Would he think it was dirty? No. He said, if you love me as much as I love you, it’s not dirty. I loved him all the way and that meant nothing was dirty. He wasn’t afraid of my germs. He wasn’t scared of me sneaking inside him.





PART FOUR





1

AMY

July 1983

Everything was different that summer. Before, whenever Mom wanted Wavy and Donal to come visit, she would call Aunt Val, and Kellen would deliver them. That summer, it was Aunt Val who called and said, “Why don’t Wavy and Donal come see you for a few weeks?” Mom insisted that she would pick them up, and I went with her.

After we got off the highway, we drove along narrow gravel roads, following directions Val had given Mom. When we got there, Wavy and Donal were alone in an old farmhouse surrounded by hayfields.

“Where’s your mother?” Mom asked.

Wavy shrugged.

“We’re supposed to tell you that she had to go to the doctor,” Donal said.

“Well, she knows I’m picking you up today, right?”

Wavy pointed at the grocery bags by the kitchen door. Their luggage. She seemed so annoyed that I wished I had stayed home. In the car, Wavy dug in her book bag and pulled out a package of Magic Markers. Choosing a bright turquoise one, she leaned across the seat toward me. Just below the hem of my shorts, she started drawing what would become an elaborate peacock over the course of the drive home. I knew my mother would screech about even a fake tattoo that covered my whole thigh, but I didn’t stop Wavy. Her hair tickled where it brushed against me, and it smelled like gunpowder.

That was what I loved about her. You never knew what she would do.

The first thing she did was ruin Leslie’s summer. Wavy didn’t even arrive until after the Fourth of July, but the ruining was retroactive.