Sweet Water(30)

Hanna punches it with her fist. “Yes, you do. Go, girl, go! I’m totally on board with your rationalization for lying to your dad, by the way. I was just teasing. It sounds like something I would do.”

I bite my cheek, both at her saying the words—“lying to your dad”—and at the realization that Hanna is rubbing off on me. But if things don’t go well tonight, I swear I’ll at least try to keep my promise to him—no more frat boys.

“Will you do my makeup?” I ask Hanna.

“Sure.” She leaps out of bed, grabs her Caboodle, and positions herself in front of my desk. I try to brush my hair while she messes with my face. My hair has always been stick straight, so I just run a brush through it and give it a little spritz for shine.

“Look up.” Hanna adds the last stripe to my eyelid, and then there’s a knock on the door.

We both glare at the clock. “Your boy’s ten minutes early. Damn, you already have him trained,” Hanna whispers.

“Shh.” I run to the door, a nervous wreck. I haven’t even checked the smoky eye Hanna insisted I needed, part of the grunge-rock revolution, which all seems contradictory to the Backstreet Boys humming from the radio in the background. I open the door.

Marty leans in. “Hey, Sarah.”

My breath catches, and I can’t respond.

“Hi, Marty.” Hanna saves me.

“Hey, Hanna.” He waves. “My car’s outside. Are you ready?” Marty is a doorway leaner. He did it the last time he was in my room, and he’s doing it again now, balancing his narrow body between the cream-colored walls, his brown leather jacket hanging at his side with his arms outstretched like he owns the place.

I stare down at my jeans and the nicest sweater I own, an emerald-green number from American Eagle with a braided-rope pattern down the front in a vertical line. It was my Christmas sweater from the year before, and I purchased it because I knew I’d be able to get a lot of wear out of it. Everything I buy is thought of in terms of utility. “Is this okay?” I point to my outfit. “For tonight?” I ask, because I’m still not sure where we’re going.

Marty’s eyes zip up and down my body, and his little half grin appears. “You look perfect.”

Perfect. My cheeks lift into an involuntary smile.

Hanna pulls off her headphones. “You look hot, Sarah.”

“Thanks.” I giggle. Hanna cracks her gum and places her headphones back on, giving me a thumbs-up while pretending to read this month’s issue of Glamour.

“You really do. Let’s go,” Marty says.

“Okay.”

Now that Marty has agreed with my indisputable hotness, my body is tingly and on edge like the first time we were together. They call it butterflies, but these are more like pterodactyls.

I have such little experience with boys, I’m not sure what to expect on a real first date. My crash course on sex ed occurred just this past summer with Joshua, my guitar-playing crush. It was never supposed to be anything serious, a summer fling, but he was my first, and I got caught in his tailspin when he skipped town without saying goodbye. Joshua left a giant hole where my heart used to be, and I promised myself the next one would be different.

The next one would be reliable, educated, steady, not some reckless artist with a score to settle with the world.

The few real dates I went on in high school were mostly doubles, a friend of a friend who was going out with me as the obligatory fourth wheel. The boy usually got off easy with a tub of popcorn at the theater and an extra soda for me. So this version of dating, where couples went out like proper adults, dined with silverware, and were expected to make small talk for the better part of an hour, was something I’d seen only in the movies. Joshua and I mostly stayed at his house, out of the view of his parents. We spent more time with our lips pressed together than apart, but the talks we’d had were intense, mostly big-picture topics—drugs, abortion, war. It wasn’t normal teenage chatter, I realize, but somehow I don’t think anyone else could stack up.

“How’re your classes?” Marty asks.

“Fine,” I say, but I’m worried that he’s already asking this question. It’s one I planned on asking over dinner when I’d obsessed about this date for the better part of the last forty-eight hours. “I’m surprisingly underwhelmed. I expected them to be much harder, actually.” The fall air tickles the hairs on my head, and I would’ve worn a jacket, but I didn’t have one that went with this sweater.

“Well, aren’t you an overachiever,” he jokes.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Oh, damn. I don’t want to sound full of myself, but I’m surprised by how manageable my classes are. My father made CMU sound like the military. The students are early to rise and keep a strict schedule to make their grades.

Marty’s car is parked on the street, a black Saab convertible, old but in mint condition.

“Nice ride,” I say.

“Thanks. It was my mom’s,” he says, and I love that he admits this. Most guys wouldn’t. Marty has scored a few more small points with me in the humility category that are starting to add up.

He didn’t peek at my bare flesh at the fence.

He had blatant candor about things that would embarrass most guys his age.

And the background info on his car tells me that Marty is wealthy enough for his parents to own a Saab but not wealthy enough to buy him a brand-new one. I’m okay with this, although hanging with even the semiwealthy is outside my comfort zone.