Love Rules Page 3

  I join in with the alto part “. . . strangers in every way . . .”

  “Right. She’d look my way, and I was certain there was a special, hidden meaning in her look, and that she loved me in the same way I loved her.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Gosh,” Kit corrects me.

  I can’t believe she’s doing this, right in the middle of the most intense conversation we’ve ever had. My mom has this thing about not using “God” in a slang way. She says it’s disrespectful to toss God’s name around like that. Kit agrees, and I sort of do, too. I don’t know if there even is a god but it’s probably good to be respectful, just in case. But I really don’t think now is the time for Kit to correct my speech patterns, while she’s confessing her bizarre love for Miss Hughes!

  Like any good psychologist would, Kit knows I’m steamed. “Sorry,” she says.

  “Gosh forgives you,” I tell her. We laugh. Which helps.

  “So anyway, after class I’d always walk up to Miss Hughes and stand close, just for an instant, to breathe the same air she was breathing.”

  “Weird,” I say.

  “But I couldn’t help thinking about her, anymore than you could help thinking about Freddy Prinze, Jr. I mean, how many times did we have to rent that stupid video, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer,’ just so you could drool over Freddy?”

  “I thought you liked that movie.”

  “I liked Jennifer Love Hewitt.”

  “Weird.”

  “Would you please stop saying that?” Kit says, her voice sort of quivery again.

  “What?”

  “Weird. Stop saying weird. I know it sounds weird. It’s not easy to tell you this. I thought about writing it all in an e-mail, while I was away this summer. I’d click send and it’d be waiting for you when you got back from camp. You’d read it before I even saw you ...so I wouldn’t have to see your face . . .”

  Tears run down her cheeks. She turns away.

  “I just want to be sure I understand,” I tell her. ‘You’re saying you’re . . . a . . . homosexual. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I am. Sure and scared,” she says, in a whisper. “What will my parents do when they find out? And I’m afraid you won’t believe we’re spirit sisters anymore. I can’t keep pretending I’m like everybody else, though, especially not to you . . .We are still sisters in spirit, aren’t we?”

  Are we, I wonder? We’ve always been there for each other. When Kit’s family life was a mess, she’d stay at my house and we’d talk and talk until she felt better. And back when I was thirteen, my mom and I were constantly fighting. In those days, Kit’s mom was perfect and mine was a witch—with a capital B. Even then, Kit would be the psychologist and I would spill my guts. Not just about Mom, either. I was way worried that I’d never grow boobs. Kit was already a 34B cup, and I was still in the saucer stage. She never made fun of me, though, or told me I was stupid to worry. She even looked up stuff about hormones on the Internet for me. We’d talk for hours, and end up laughing so hard I’d forget my problems. She’s always done that for me.

  “A question hangs in the air,” Kit says. She gazes out the window, as if the answer doesn’t matter. “Still spirit sisters?”

  “Spirit sisters,” I say, giving her a high five. “For life.”

  “For life,” she says, smiling, returning the gesture with enthusi­asm. “I was sure I could count on you . . . pretty sure, anyway.”

  We laugh. The tension melts away. Again I am at ease with Kit.

  The lights are on in the cafe now. and my butt is numb from sitting here so long. On the walk home, I keep sneaking looks at Kit, the way she walks, her hands, her thick black hair framing her dark, high-cheekboned face. It’s the same old Kit, isn’t it? But then why does everything feel so strange?

  CHAPTER

  3

  Friday night. It’s been two days since Kit confessed to me that she likes girls. I was supposed to spend the night at her house tonight, getting back to our usual Friday night sleep over routine, but at the last minute I backed out. I was a sneak about it, too. I called at a time when I knew she’d be gone, and left a message on her machine.

  “Kit? Listen, my mom already had plans for us to visit Aunt Grace tonight, so I can’t sleep over. Sorry.”

  Aunt Grace’s not my real aunt, that’s just what I’ve always called her. She’s one of my mom’s friends from a long time ago. Kit knows we do visit her sometimes, so maybe she’ll believe my story.

  I’ve never, ever lied to Kit before. I feel like trash. I’m not even sure why I did it, except that it just seemed too creepy to spend the night with her, and sleep in the same bed, knowing what I know now.

  Just after I’ve left the lying message on Kit’s machine, Mom comes in from her job at Microdyne Technology.

  “I’m surprised you’re home. I thought you’d be at Kit’s by now.”

  “She had to do something with her parents,” I say, not looking Mom in the eye.

  “Really?” Mom sounds doubtful.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well . . . Roberta and I have plans to go to dinner and see a movie. Do you want to go with us?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “You’ll be all right on your own?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t want to be seen with the old ladies?”

  “It’s not that,” I say, forcing a smile.

  My mom is short, and kind of pudgy, with blonde hair held back with one of those hairband things Hillary Clinton used to wear. When I was little I loved the softness of my mom. I could practically bury myself in her if I was hurt, or tired. Then, when I got to be about thirteen, I wished she were thin and tall and stylish, like Kit’s mom. But now that I’m seventeen, I’m over that. She’s a good mom, even if she’s what the magazines call full-figured.

  Mom gives me one of her “this isn’t the whole story” looks.

  “You’re not getting sick are you? You look a little peaked.”

  “Mom! I’m fine!”

  “Well, I’ll have to take your word for it,” she says.

  I pick up a copy of People and pretend to be reading it. Finally, Mom gives up and leaves the room. I go into the kitchen and turn off the ringer on the phone. It would be just my luck to have Kit call and Mom answer and then they’d both know I’d been lying.

  When Mom leaves, I turn the ringer back on the phone. I get a Clucker’s Old Fashioned Chicken Pot Pie from the freezer and microwave it. Clucker’s is this place down on Fifth Street that makes chicken pot pies from Mr. Clucker’s grandmother’s recipe. I swear that’s their name—Clucker. If they’d been named Woofer, would we have had Woofer’s Old Fashioned Doggie Pot Pies? Never mind.

  I take my pot pie and a glass of milk into the living room and put it on the coffee table. I turn on the TV, then go through the house turning off lights and closing the blinds. I leave a dim light on in the living room, because that’s what we always do when we’re gone, and Kit knows it. I sit in front of the TV, the sound way low.

  There’s a reason people come all the way from as far north as Bakersfield and as far south as San Diego for Clucker’s. The filling is thick and yummy, with a melt-in-your-mouth crust. I always eat the filling first, then savor the crust. Mom says I’ve been eating Clucker’s that way since she first started me on solid food.

  Why am I thinking so much about Clucker’s? Because I don’t want to think about how I’ve treated Kit. That’s why. When I get to the crust, it has the cardboard texture of cheap pizza. I should have cooked it in the oven instead of the microwave. I don’t care. Liars deserve cardboard crusts.

  About ten, the time I might be home from Aunt Grace’s, if that’s where I’d been, the phone starts ringing. It rings every ten or fifteen minutes, until about eleven-thirty. Then it stops. Before I go to bed I listen to the messages on the machine in the kitchen. Four from Kit, each one sounding sadder than the one bef
ore.

  “Don’t shut me out.” is what the last message says. I erase them all and go to bed.

  I lie there for a long time, waiting for sleep to come. Wilma, my little black and white border collie/cocker spaniel mutt, is curled up next to me on my bed, her head resting on the edge of my pillow, her paws twitching as she runs through fields of doggie dreams. I’m wide awake, trying not to think about the major Kit drama, trying not to think about lying to her. Have you ever really tried not to think about something? Try not to think about an octopus. Just try it. See what I mean? So here’s what I’m not thinking about, which is the same thing as saying I’m thinking about it all the time. Lesbian. My best friend is a lesbian. I’ve been sleeping with her for six years. A lesbian. What does it all mean?

  I toss and turn, stretch out on my stomach, my back, curl up in a fetal position. Nothing works. Wilma stirs with each turn, but doesn’t wake up.

  I turn on the light and take the novel we’re reading for English from my bedside table. When we were first assigned this book, The Color Purple, I didn’t think I’d like it. It’s a bunch of letters to God, and they’re not even written in good English. Sometimes I have to read the same thing over and over just to figure out what it means. That part is getting easier now, though.

  In the book, the main character, Celie, the one who writes the letters, is three years younger than I am. She’s already had two babies, and her own father is the father of her babies. And things get worse and worse. But something about Celie makes me want to keep reading—maybe it’s the way she keeps on trying even though her life is already trashed.

  I take up on page thirty-six. Here’s a coincidence. Celie is having trouble sleeping, too. And get this, after a lot of sleepless nights she writes:

  A little voice say, something you done wrong...way late one night it come to me. Sofia. I sin against Sofia spirit.

  I close the book and think about why I can’t sleep. Like Celie, I ask myself “What it is?” And it doesn’t take long to figure it out. If I thought about sin, like Celie does, I’d have to say that I sinned against Kit’s spirit when I lied to her. Even if I don’t think in terms of sin, I know I was wrong to be dishonest with Kit. I want to call her right now—somehow wash away the lie and put things right between us. I’ll call first thing in the morning. But what will I say?

  Finally, when the sun is up, I wander into the kitchen. Mom is still sleeping. I force myself to wait until nine, a reasonable time to call people on a Saturday morning. I pick up the phone and dial Kit’s number. I still don’t know exactly what I’ll say. In PC we learned it’s best to use “I” statements in tense situations. That way the other person doesn’t need to get defensive. I’ve never, ever had to think twice about anything I said to Kit—I always just said it. But things are different now.

  Kit’s line is busy. This happens a lot. We call each other at the exact same time. It’s because we’re both on the same wave length according to Mom. I used to think that was true, but how can I be on the same wave length as someone who’s, well . . . a homosexual.

  I press redial. Kit picks up before the first ring is finished.

  “Did you just try to call me?” I ask.

  “Yep.”

  We both laugh. Then there is a long pause.

  “You first,” Kit says. “You’re the one who got the call through.”

  A lot of things run through my mind. Stay with “I” messages I remind myself.

  “I feel weird about what you told me the other day.”

  “You feel weird. How do you think I feel?” Kit asks.

  “I don’t know. That’s one of the weird things. I always thought I knew how you felt, and now I don’t.”

  There’s a long silence.

  “Look,” Kit says. “It’s still me.”

  We talk in a slow, awkward way until finally Kit says, “This is frustrating. Come spend the night and we’ll have plenty of time to talk. We’ll rent a movie. Like always.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Come on Lynn, stop being so uptight! I’ll sleep on the couch if you want, and you can have my bed to yourself.”

  “It’s not that,” I say.

  “Is, too!”

  “I’ll check with Mom and call you back,” I say.

  “Yeah, well I’m not buying any more lies! I can’t believe you didn’t just come straight out with it yesterday and say you didn’t want to spend the night with a homo!”

  “I’m confused! Okay?”

  “Okay, that makes two of us. But listen, you’re not my type. You’re my spirit sister. I want that always, but don’t flatter yourself that I find you physically attractive.”

  When we hang up my head is spinning! I go into my room and stand looking at the picture collage on the wall above my desk. There’s a picture of my mom and dad, before they divorced. And a picture of Wilma jumping for a frisbee. It’s an action shot, like you see in magazines, and Wilma would look exactly like those border collie frisbee champs, except for her cocker spaniel ears flopping in the breeze.

  There’s a picture of me and Gramma and Grampa, dressed up for Christmas. They look healthy and happy in that picture, and it’s strange to think that only a year later, both of them were dead. My gramma died first, of cancer. Then my grampa a month later, of a heart attack. Mom thinks he died of the shock of losing Gramma. Who knows? All I know is they’re dead and I miss them. They both thought I was the greatest kid on earth. My mom loves me, but she’s more realistic about me than Gramma and Grampa were. I miss being the greatest wonderful kid in the world to somebody.

  Besides those few pictures, there are a bunch of me and Kit — at the beach, in the mountains, clowning around in the sprinklers. Also, there are snaps that include Holly and Nicole, too, playing volleyball, and soccer. But check out the one of us dressed like Beauty and the Beast one Halloween. Kit was the beast. Did it mean anything that I was the girl and she was the boy? We were only twelve. Did she want to be a boy? Just because she likes girls, I mean really likes girls, does that mean she wants to be a boy?

  My mom once complained because I had more pictures of Kit up there than I did of my own family.

  “But Kit is my family” I’d said. “She’s my sister.”

  “Don’t talk silly.” Mom said, half-angry.

  “I’m not — she’s my spirit sister.”

  That’s how I felt then, and I still do. Kit has a right to be who she is. I’ve got to remember that. I go to the phone and call her.

  “I’ll be over around six,” I tell her.

  “Cool. Pete’s Pizza, garbageburgers, or Clucker’s?

  “Pizza,” I say.

  I don’t have to tell her I want mushrooms and black olives. She knows. That’s the kind of friend I never want to lose.

  Things feel strange, but we go through the motions of our regular Friday night routine. We do the pizza pig out and watch “My Dog Skip.” On Monday, before the big drama, we decided that “Dog” would be the word for our senior year. I’ll explain.

  Each September, just before school starts, we decide which word has to be in the title of our Friday night video rentals. Last year it was “moon.” So we saw “Racing with the Moon,” “Moonstruck,” “Paper Moon.” We even saw “Moon Raiders,” which wasn’t all that great, but by the time school was almost out, we were desperate to find another “moon” movie. Most people think that’s a weak way to choose a movie, but we like it. We get some offbeat stuff that way. Sometimes we like offbeat.

  We cry over “My Dog Skip,” and I think about Wilma, and how sad I’ll be when she dies.

  “You’ll probably be thirty by that time,” Kit says. “You may not even like dogs then.”

  “I’ll always like dogs. And I’ll always love Wilma.”

  “You can’t be sure how you’ll feel when you’re thirty,” Kit says.

  So we have this long, stupid conversation about dogs, and the role they’ll have in our lives when we’re thirty, and will Wilma lo
se her pep when she gets old, and on, and on, and on. I think we do that to avoid talking about what’s most on our minds.

  It’s after eleven when Kit’s mom and dad come in from a meeting. Kit’s dad, David, goes to an AA meeting almost every day. Sometimes her mom goes with him. They look like a couple you could see in the movies. On the screen, I mean, not just in the audience.

  Kit’s mom, Jessie, is tall and slim. She’s wearing a white linen dress that sets off her dark skin and eyes. She probably could have been a model if she’d wanted. Kit’s dad is dressed in khaki pants and a plaid cotton shirt. He’s a sheriff, and tough looking—muscular, not paunchy like some of those guys. He’s not Mr. Macho, though. Every night before he goes to bed, Kit’s dad prays for whoever he’s arrested that day, and for other people he’s seen who are in trouble. Kit says he’s been doing that ever since he started with the AA thing.

  “How was the movie?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the sofa, resting his arm on Kit’s shoulder.

  We tell him about “My Dog Skip,” how funny and how sad.

  Jessie picks up a piece of cold pizza crust and starts munching away.

  “I’ll watch that movie some time, when I’m ready for a good cry,” she says.

  “We’ve got a fresh quart jar of jelly and a tub of peanut butter for in the morning,” David says.

  We all laugh, remembering how all through the seventh grade Kit and I only ate peanut butter mixed with jelly. No toast. Just a bowl of the mixture which we’d eat with spoons. Kit’s mom said it was hormonal, but I don’t even want to think about hormones right now. Did Kit’s hormones go crazy some time back then, turning her into a . . . girl lover?

  Kit’s dad leans over and kisses her on the top of her head.

  “Goodnight, sweet Katherine,” he says.

  Even back when Kit’s dad was drinking, his eyes would go all soft when he looked at her. I envy that. My dad’s eyes always look the same, whether he’s looking at me or some football game on TV.

  Jessie gives the usual parental warning about not staying up too late. They really don’t care though, as long as we’re not loud. I watch as they leave the room. They seem happy together.