CHRISTIAN IS LATE picking up Holly. Christian is always late picking up Holly. Usually she meets him at the Taco Bell after school, on nights she doesn’t have to work. She sits on the picnic bench and does some homework and tries to look casual, like she doesn’t have a secret. (If she could somehow work it out that people knew she had a secret, without actually knowing what that secret was, that would be perfect, but she doesn’t think it works that way.) Eventually Christian picks her up in the parking lot and apologizes for being late and blames it on his dad, because it is always his dad’s fault.
Everything is his dad’s fault, except when it is his mother’s fault, Holly has learned. His dad is too old, his dad is too sick, his dad won’t ante up with the cash. His mother isn’t even worth talking about, except when he is really drunk. A few months ago she kicked him out of her house, three towns over. She doesn’t love him anymore. That’s all he’ll say.
She met his father once. He was in a wheelchair, and he seemed so excited to meet her. He shook her hand and grabbed her wrist and held it. It only freaked her out a little bit.
When Christian is done blaming his dad, they drive through the drive-through and get Nachos BellGrande and a bunch of tacos and two Pepsis, and then they go to his house and eat it and then make out with their awful taco breath. Sometimes they drink beer and then they have beer breath. Tonight he has promised vodka, but that doesn’t really taste like anything at all.
She stands and waits with Shelly, both of them behind the counter with their matching eyelids and skimpy T-shirts and armpits deodorized within an inch of their lives. Shelly has never met him. Shelly wants to see him. Shelly wants to know who her secret boyfriend is. How exciting! A secret boyfriend. Everyone in the store is almost ready to leave: the pharmacist, Christine, who has a one-year-old and an unemployed load of a husband waiting for her at home; the stockboy, Mario, who always wears red shirts and black pants and has a unibrow; and the delivery guy, Schneider, who is probably too old to be a delivery guy—he’s well into his thirties—but Holly couldn’t imagine him doing anything else, the way he shuffles and sneers and seems completely devoid of any math skills. More than any of the other employees, he’s the one who consistently stares at Shelly’s ass.
They all want to go home, and she is standing there, waiting, like a jackass.
Christian walks into the pharmacy, straight to the back counter where Holly and Shelly are standing. He is wearing a black sweater with holes in both elbows and camouflage pants with ties at the bottom and huge pockets at the thighs. His hair is slicked back—He’s fresh out of the shower, she thinks. He showered! For our date!—so she sees the shaved sides of his head. He is one perfect smooth person now. A tiny cross earring dangles from his right ear. Forgotten is the tardiness, forgotten is the trashiness, forgotten are the constant complaints. She is suddenly swooning with pride that this is her boyfriend.
He looks at her and smiles, and he looks at Shelly and stops.
“You have the same…” He motions with his finger at his eyes. He keeps looking at her. “It looks nice,” he says. He is still looking at Shelly.
“Thanks,” Holly says. Over here, she thinks. I am over here.
She introduces them, pauses for a breath, and then she says, We’ve got to go, no really, we’re late as it is. Late for what? He is still staring at Shelly. Holly hustles him out the door.
I’ve got to move fast is all she is thinking.
WHEN HOLLY LOOKS back as she leaves, she sees Shelly is staring at her, and she waves. Shelly does not wave back because she does not see Holly wave because she is staring at Christian.
IN THE BASEMENT, in the basement, with the vodka and the kissing, Holly is urgent and pushy. She drinks two vodka and cranberries in a half hour. She takes off her bra in the bathroom and shoves it in her purse. Then she says screw it, and takes off her underpants, too. She can barely look at herself in the mirror, but she puts on more lipstick.
When she returns he is lying on the black leather couch. Come here baby, he says. She joins him. She starts to lie next to him, but then she moves on top of him. He puts his hands on her ass. She sits up, straddles him, and he puts his hands on her waist and then moves them up to the undersides of her breasts, first outside her shirt, and then underneath it.
Hands combined flat on nipples plus two vodka and cranberries equals a deeper, faster breath.
You’re definitely trying to seduce me, he says.
Yes, she says. Yes, I am.