Soul Kiss Page 2

  As you could imagine, it caused a huge traffic jam with kids trying to pass each other in the narrow aisles between students. By the time he called “Melissa Torani,” there was major gridlock all around my desk. For a math guy, Mr. Iccanello was not very efficient. It took almost twenty minutes to get that out of the way.

  Just like in English, Daniel was willing to speak up when no one else was, giving a long, drawn-out explanation of what a real number was. Even Mr. Iccanello looked bored by the time he was finished.

  There was no AP class in third period, so we all split up. I went to study hall, which was a total waste of time since there was nothing to study yet, and I met up with Brie again at lunch, where we sat with Chelsea Scalzitti and Mindy Kagan, just like we’d been doing for four years.

  Daniel Florez sat by himself at the end of a long table. There was a clearly defined space between him and the group at the other end. No one sat with him, and no one had invited him to join them. I felt kind of bad for him, but I didn’t want to let myself in for one of those lectures of his, either.

  Chelsea leaned in close and said, “I think the new kid is wearing a shirt my aunt Bernice bought for my brother last Christmas. My mother couldn’t donate it to the thrift shop fast enough.”

  Mindy said, “He must be from some foreign country. He talks funny.”

  I refrained from pointing out that all the metal in Mindy’s mouth didn’t exactly contribute to her speech patterns.

  “And what is he eating?” Chelsea said.

  Daniel had brought his own lunch, in a paper bag -- a couple of sandwiches and some chips that looked like they were made from freeze-dried bananas.

  “I don’t know, but it looks gross,” Brie said.

  Though I didn’t know why, I was determined to shift the conversation away from Daniel. “Tell us about Wildwood Crest, Brie,” I said. “Did you have fun?”

  She shot me a murderous look. “It was okay. Typical Jersey shore.”

  At least that launched everybody into stories of where they had gone for summer vacation.

  Because the Big Mistake has so many weird things wrong with him, we hardly ever go anywhere. We didn’t even have grandparents in distant places to go visit. My mom was an only child from Harrisburg, and her parents were both dead, which maybe contributed to her desperate attempts to get us to feel like Macgregors.

  The only place we ever went was to visit my aunt and uncle in Scranton, because the Big Mistake can’t eat most processed food, he’s allergic to mattresses and pillows, and we’re long past sharing a room with our parents. The Big S Motel, a few blocks from their house, let us bring our own linens and gave us a discount on two adjoining rooms.

  So I was stuck in Stewart’s Crossing all summer, taking enrichment courses when everyone else was off playing at the beach or in the mountains. I had to sit there and listen to stories about roller coasters, restaurants where you sat on the floor to eat, and science museums with creepy dinosaur skeletons. And all I could do was sit there and say, “That sounds cool” even when it didn’t, because I didn’t have anything better to contribute.

  When lunch was over we moved on to AP History, in D period. And sure enough, Daniel was there, sounding like he had swallowed the history textbook. When Mrs. Becker asked if anyone knew why we were beginning our study of European history in 1789, Daniel said, “That was the year the French revolution began, when the people rose up against the corrupt emperor and proclaimed a republic. People think that’s when they executed King Louis the sixteenth but that didn’t happen for a couple of years.”

  The rest of the class groaned. It looked like we were going to be in for a long semester. I mean, European history was bad enough, but it was going to be miserable if we had to listen to lectures from both Mrs. Becker and Daniel Florez.

  On the bus home, Brie and I talked about a million things, from bad lockers and worse classes to new updates on the same old boring classmates. Our teachers were smart enough not to give us homework on the first day of school; it would set a bad precedent. So I went over to Brie’s house, around the corner from mine, and we spent the afternoon polishing our nails and texting our friends and listening to music.

  Around five I went back home. The Big Mistake was already there, sprawled on the couch in the living room with his headphones on. Neither of us said anything as I walked past.

  When he was ten his pediatrician had him tested for allergies. We discovered that he reacted poorly to wheat, food dyes, food additives, and peanuts, among many other things. I had been eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day for lunch. Of course that had to stop immediately: Robbie couldn’t even have peanut butter in the house.

  He did start to behave better, I’ll give him that. But it meant that we all had to eat Robbie’s diet, because my mom wasn’t going to make separate meals for him. I walked past the kitchen and sniffed. It smelled horrific.

  “What is that?” I asked my mom, who was sitting at the table doing a crossword puzzle while whatever awful stuff was baking in the oven. “Salmon-spinach loaf,” she said proudly, like it was some accomplishment.

  “Gross. Can I have something else?”

  “This is not a restaurant, Melissa,” she said, for like the ten thousandth time. “You eat what you’re served or you don’t eat anything.”

  “Fine, then I’ll starve,” I said. “The child protection people will come over and ask ‘why is your daughter so skeletal?’ and you can tell them it’s because all you serve in this house is horrible food that normal people shouldn’t eat.”

  “You’re not exactly skeletal,” my mother said.

  I burst into tears. “I knew it! You think I’m fat! I hate you!” I ran into my room and slammed the door behind me. The whole crummy house shook.

  I’m not like anorexic or anything. And I don’t throw up my meals. But I always feel like I could lose a few pounds, that if I did boys would think I’m cuter, that my life would be totally better.

  I threw myself down on my bed and pouted for a while. Then I texted Brie to see what they were eating at her house. Pizza, she replied.

  Cn I cm 2?

  While I waited for her response I looked in the mirror. I hadn’t had a beach vacation like Brie where I could tan, and my skin looked pale. I thought it would never be that golden caramel color of Daniel Florez’s.

  I stopped. Why in the world would I think of him? He was cute, but a total dork. I wouldn’t go out with him if he begged me.

  But I did love the way his hair looked. Why couldn’t mine be wavy like that, instead of curly? I remembered the way he had looked at me in English class, how the book title had suddenly come to me. Maybe he was telepathic! And he could see right into my soul, and send me secret messages in the middle of English class.

  My head was spinning when my phone burped. U cn cm, Brie texted.

  I heard my father’s car pull up in the driveway. I reached out and put the “Do Not Disturb on Pain of Death” sign on my doorknob, then locked the door. Our house is a ranch style, all the rooms on one floor. My parents’ bedroom is on the other side of the house, beyond the living room and the dining room, and on this side is my room, Robbie’s room, and the bathroom we share.

  I opened my window and pulled the screen inside. Then I stuck one leg through, then the other, and slithered out into the flowerbed underneath my window. I pulled the window shut behind me and slipped around the corner to Brie’s house.

  One good thing about the Big Mistake: my parents got so accustomed to paying attention to him, making sure he wasn’t killing himself, or anyone else, that they hardly noticed when I wasn’t around. So I could usually to go have dinner at Brie’s, hang out watching TV with her, then sneak back into my house just before ten, and my parents wouldn’t even miss me.

  But not that night. When I slipped back into my room through the window, I saw my bedroom door was open. And my mother was sitting on my bed, typing on her laptop.

  “Melissa.”

&nb
sp; “Mom.”

  I waited. She just kept on typing.

  “Um. Why are you in my room?”

  “I’m in the middle of something. I’ll yell at you when I’m finished.”

  “Oh, great. Take a number, Melissa. You’re not even important enough to yell at.” I sat down at my desk and glowered at my mother.

  Without looking up from her computer, she called, “Richard. Your daughter is home.”

  I groaned. “It’s late, Mom. Can we just get this over with?”

  My father appeared in the doorway. “Yes, it is late, Melissa. Where have you been?”

  “Brie’s.”

  “And why didn’t you ask for permission before you left?”

  That was a good question. Sadly, though, I didn’t have an answer.

  My mother finished what she was typing and closed the computer. “Your father and I have enough to worry about with your brother, Melissa. We count on you to be a good girl and not cause problems.”

  “It’s always all about Robbie, isn’t it?”

  “Do you want it to be all about you, Melissa?” my father asked, still standing there in the doorway like he was blocking my exit route. “Do you want us to keep tabs on everything you do?”

  I looked down at the desk. “No.”

  “Then start acting like we can trust you.”

  My mother stood up. “You’re not going to sneak out like this again, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Fine. Get ready for bed. You have school tomorrow.” She followed my father out of the room.

  I immediately texted Brie to tell her what had happened. U r a wild child, she texted back.

  Yeah, right. I was the most boring person I knew. Well, with the exception of Daniel Florez.

  And why did I keep thinking about him?

  Computer Connection

  Thursday night at dinner my dad asked, “Melissa, can I borrow your laptop tomorrow? The hard drive on mine crashed and I have to make a client presentation.”

  My dad is tall and kind of husky; he likes to wear button-down shirts and khakis, and he has these wire-rimmed glasses that make him look like a college professor. He’s a partner in an ad agency in Philadelphia, working mostly on tedious stuff like campaigns for new drugs. Sometimes he ropes me into proofreading with him. You would not believe how boring some of that crap is that they have to put on medicine bottles and boxes, all the TMs and copyrights and Surgeon General’s warnings.

  Since it was his laptop before it was mine, it wasn’t like I could refuse. “Sure, Dad. Are you going to get a new one?”

  “Yeah. Maybe you can come with me Saturday and help me shop.”

  I kept it cool, saying, “Yeah, if you want,” but in my mind I was rubbing my hands together in glee. My dad is a total sweetheart when my mom isn’t around; he’ll buy me stuff she would never agree to. And when he saw what an outdated clunker my laptop was… well, who knows? Maybe they’d have a two-for-one sale at ComputerCo.

  The next morning, I spent most of AP English thinking about what I could get my dad to buy me at ComputerCo. Not that I’m greedy or anything. But I see all the gadgets the other kids have, like bright neon-colored netbooks with designer carrying bags, adorable little smart phones that take real movies, bracelets with LED lights, USB drives shaped like M&Ms—I mean, there is just so much you can want! I hardly paid attention to anything Mrs. Ash said.

  As we were leaving class, Daniel cornered me. And in a demonstration of his massive social skills, he didn’t even say hello, or tell me I looked nice that morning. Instead he just said, “Who’s your favorite author?”

  Since we were still technically in English world, I didn’t feel comfortable saying Stephenie Meyer or Richelle Mead or anybody who was still alive. So I said, “Jane Austen,” because we had read Pride and Prejudice the year before and I had liked it enough to read a couple of her other books.

  He just nodded. “I haven’t read those. But I will.”

  Like, why? I wanted to ask, but the tide of students swept us on down the hall. I thought, oh my God, does Daniel Florez like me? Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

  Saturday morning my mom took the Big Mistake to his first football practice of the season, and then went off to do her major grocery shop, where she basically piles all the crap in the store in a couple of wagons and loads up our cabinets. Then the Big Mistake devours it and she repeats the process. Usually I get drafted into pushing the wagon, but dad needing actual help trumped that.

  He’s always bragging how he has been using computers since he was in high school—but that was back when they were these big hulking monsters you fed punch cards into. Start talking to him about RAM and ROM and USB and his eyes glaze over. I’m no geek, but I took a computer course in ninth grade and since then I have started coveting faster and faster computers, more memory to store music and pictures.

  We drove over to the big ComputerCo superstore in Levittown and parked. As we walked in, my heart sank. Over in the corner was Daniel Florez, wearing a dark blue polo shirt with the store’s logo. “Shit,” I mumbled, as I saw him make a beeline for us.

  “Hi, Melissa,” he said, smiling brightly.

  “Hi, Daniel.”

  My father looked at me with one of those “where are your manners” subtexts, and I said, “This is my father. Dad, Daniel’s in class with me.”

  “And you work here?” my father said, shaking Daniel’s hand. “That’s great! You can help us find a new laptop.”

  “Absolutely! We have some great ones with the AMD Turion II processors with 4 gigabytes of RAM and 500 gig hard drives, or if you prefer we can look at netbooks; you sacrifice some screen size in favor of portability, that is if you don’t need a CD drive.”

  Already I could see my dad getting confused. “Can the jargon, Daniel. He needs a big screen so he can make presentations. Let’s start with that.”

  Daniel said, “Sorry. I get excited sometimes and I tend to go into more detail than I should.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard you in class.” I pointed in the direction of the laptops. “Lead on, Macduff.”

  “You know that’s actually ‘lay on, Macduff,’ right?” he asked. “We read Macbeth last year in my Shakespeare class in my last school.”

  “Daniel. Laptops?”

  He blushed. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He turned and headed toward the laptop display.

  “He’s very nice,” my father said as we followed. “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “God, no. He’s just in my class.”

  My father didn’t say anything, just nodded in that kind of father knows best way. I wanted to argue some more but something told me that wasn’t the right way to go.

  I had to give Daniel props. He really knew his shit. He took us right to a great laptop with a huge display, like seventeen inches, and pointed out all the stuff my dad could do with it. He was totally sold. “And it’s on sale today,” Daniel finished. “All the laptops and netbooks by this manufacturer.” He looked at me. “A netbook would be great for Melissa,” he said. “Lightweight, easy to carry around.”

  I could have kissed Daniel for that. Or not.

  “Would you want a new computer?” my father asked me. “We could give your laptop to Robbie. He’s always borrowing your mom’s and I know she hates that.”

  Like, duh. Was I going to say no? “Sure. I want to maximize hard disk space, though. Screen size doesn’t matter to me.”

  “I know just the one.” Daniel led us over an aisle and pointed at a display.

  “Pink!” I said. “No way. Do I look like the kind of girl who would carry around a pink computer?”

  My father laughed. “You don’t know my daughter well, do you?”

  “Not yet,” Daniel said.

  I must have turned as red as a Christmas decoration. Daniel said, “It comes in midnight blue too.”

  At that point I wanted to just run out of the store, but my computer lust trumped embarrassment. “I could go w
ith blue.”

  “What kind of software do these machines come with?” my father asked.

  He and Daniel got into a discussion and I zoned out, daydreaming about my new computer. When I tuned back in, my father was saying, “That would be terrific, Daniel. Why don’t you plan to stay for dinner?”

  Huh? What was going on? When my dad gave him our address I realized Daniel had volunteered to come over to the house and set up the new computers for us. Shit.

  “Your friend seems like a very nice boy,” my father said, as we drove back home.

  “He’s not my friend.” I slumped in the corner of the front seat, as close to the door as I could get. My life was a disaster movie. Daniel Florez was coming to MY HOUSE. He would meet my crazy mom and the Big Mistake. And everybody would start to think he was my boyfriend. I could just die.

  We got home as Mom was pulling in with the SUV loaded with groceries, and dad said, “Help your mother. We don’t have to unpack the computers until Daniel gets here.”

  I groaned. As he told my mother all about my new friend, I grabbed a couple of bags of groceries and trudged toward the kitchen.

  After everything was unpacked and put away, I was itching to get my hands on my new netbook, but my dad had put everything in his study to wait for Daniel. I texted Brie for a while, sitting in my room looking out the window, and then I saw Daniel walking up the street toward the house.

  Gt 2 go, I texted. Geek alert.

  I walked outside and met Daniel at the curb. “Where’s your car?”

  “Don’t have one. One of the guys I work with dropped me off down on Main Street and I walked up here.”

  “But that’s like two miles.”

  He shrugged. “I like to walk. So where are the computers?”

  I led him into the house, which was chaotic as usual. The Big Mistake was sprawled on the sofa playing a video game, and my mom was at the dining room table making these miniature straw scarecrows she found a pattern for in one of her thousands of home magazines. I mumbled my introductions and dragged Daniel toward the study.