The car stopped, her friend’s voice rising as she socked her brother in the shoulder. “Hey!” the brother said, in protest, and then, “Hey, man,” out his window, and a deep male voice drawled back, “Hey.”
Jennifer knew that voice. Suddenly she was hot inside her coat. An exchange took place, which she followed with such intense concentration that she couldn’t process any of it. Then he was in the backseat with her, bringing the whole world with him, taking up all the space. Oh my God. Tommy Carrasco.
The car started back up. “Geometry,” he said to her, in a low voice that came to her under the increasingly loud argument in the front seat. She nodded but didn’t speak. He studied her. He looked at her in a way that was at once flattering and intimidating. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she heard herself ask. “Do you want to sleep with me?” Her tone was matter-of-fact, the question just a question. What had possessed her to ask it? She had wanted to know. She could feel heat in her cheeks, but her hair was long and the night was dark, and she told herself he couldn’t possibly notice her blush.
He laughed, a surprised laugh, and leaned his head back against the seat. She’d made him break his gaze, but she didn’t think about that triumph until later, recounting the incident to herself. At the moment she had her eyes fixed on his neck, caught in a vampiric urge to put her mouth on it. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked, and her surprised eyes darted back to his face. His voice was a murmur, warm breath near your skin, a hand on your thigh. “Do you want to sleep with me?”
“I’m only fourteen,” she said.
He nodded thoughtfully, narrowing his eyes in consideration. “Too young,” he agreed.
“Maybe next year,” she said, and he whipped his head toward her with a comic expression of genuine shock. She grinned. She knew this self-possession, this elation, flooding through her limbs. It was how she felt when she danced, and at no other time. At no other time until now.
They didn’t make it to the previews, or any of the movie at all. Tommy knew about a party, and Jennifer’s friend found herself outvoted. In a dark corner of the party Tommy kissed her. And that was how they came to be.
Being with him proved only to increase her yearning. Before she hadn’t known it was possible to get what she wanted and so had wanted it without much hope. But now she hoped. She hoped all the time, and it was terrifying. When he left her at her door she hoped he would come back to kiss her again. When he hung up the phone she hoped he would call her later. She hoped he would meet her in the hall between classes, he would name her his girlfriend, he would ask her to prom. And he did, and he did, and he did. She existed only to witness these miracles.
That summer she was going to dance camp for six weeks. This had been planned before Tommy, and even high on love she didn’t want to unplan it. Her life was too much his already. As the time approached she was filled with a fatalistic dread. He talked about how much he’d miss her, and how they’d talk every night, and what they’d do when she got back, but she believed down deep that he’d find another girl, that his interest was a fluke that couldn’t outlast her absence, that her departure would be the end. They parted with many protestations of love, and she cried, and then she climbed into her father’s car and stopped herself from looking back at him. He sounded anxious on the phone that night, as if he were the one worried she wouldn’t want him anymore, and he called her as much as he’d said he would, but still she doubted. Still she held herself apart. She threw herself into dance. The older girls taught her to survive on bouillon and celery and by the end of the six weeks she was skinny as a prima ballerina and buoyant with pride. She was cold to him on the phone the last week, so exhilarated was she by the conviction of her immaculate self-control.
Her parents, when they picked her up, had no comment about her altered appearance, but when Tommy saw her he took one look and said, “No.”
“No, what?” she asked. They were out in front of her house. He’d driven over as soon as he knew she was home, and she’d gone out with her chin lifted to meet him, determined, this time and henceforth, not to be overwhelmed.
“No to this,” he said, indicating the length of her body. “I won’t let you do this to yourself.”
“Why not?” She tried to sound haughty but her voice quivered.