"I know baby. I know." He brushes my hair back from my face. "Just...maybe think about getting out around the house a bit more. You're safe here. You know that. Get some air. Get some vitamin D."
"I'll try. I promise."
It's a get out clause and I know it. I promise to try. When he's gone I look up vitamin D on the internet. Maybe I can get supplements. There's a website that says all you need to get your required intake is twenty minutes of sunshine each day - no sunblock and as few clothes as possible. Wouldn't that give Jimmy a treat? Lie out there in nothing but a pair of Ray-Bans and watch his eyes light up like pinwheels. When he looks at me I feel that kind of light-headed, half-terrified feeling I used to feel when I was maybe fifteen, whenever I caught a man staring at me. I'd be breathless with the new, precipitous sense of my own power. And scared. So scared that it might overtake me completely.
Maybe I should up my dose of anti-depressants. It's been getting worse lately, and it was lust that got me into this mess in the first place.
I open the drapes and go outside for a smoke. He's not out there, which is just as well because I've seen the way he looks at me. I could have him. The thought is like a rebel flag and I can't get it out of my head. Just a word or a look of understanding and he could be inside me. It's been so long I don't even know if my vibrator still has batteries in it.
When he rounds the corner he looks so much like a rabbit in the headlights that I wonder if he can see inside of my head. "Hey," he says.
"Hi." He moves around to the wide edge of the pool. His hips are amazingly small - I've never really noticed them, until I started thinking about having them between my thighs. God, what the hell is wrong with me? The moment it occurs to me that Daddy would disapprove I suddenly start wanting it. Could I be much more of a brat?
"How are you?" he says.
"I'm...good. I think."
"Cool." He starts walking - just making his rounds. No. Not today. Please stay with me today. I practically throw myself in his path.
He frowns, confused. His eyebrows are soft little black smudges, too arched to be really manly. They match his beautiful long, girlish eyelashes, but his jaw is square and his chin strong. It's hot and his shirt is partly unbuttoned, revealing a smooth pair of collarbones. "Are you okay?" he says. "You need some more smokes?"
"No," I say. "Are you mad at me?"
Jimmy sighs. "No. I'm...confused, I guess. You push me away and then you ask me if I'm mad at you. It's a weird way to behave if you want to make friends."
Friends. Do I have any of those left? I don't think so. "I'm sorry," I say. "It's complicated. You know about that, right?"
He shifts his weight on one foot and gives me a long, steady look. His eyes are so brown they're almost black. "I don't," he says. "I decided - I'm not going to look you up on the internet. If you want to tell me you'll tell me. If you don't, you don't. Until then it's none of my business."
At once I'm ashamed of myself, but that doesn't stop me. "Thank you," I say, and stretch up to kiss his cheek. It's not fair of me; I know he likes he more than he should. I guess old habits die hard. Justin always said that deep down I was kind of a bitch.
Chapter Six
Amber
I never expected to see him again, even after I chose to study in San Diego. He was more of a phantom than a person, good ju-ju, some glimpse of the possibilities ahead of me. I was still only dimly aware that sex was even amongst those possibilities; Everglade had shucked off her virginity at fifteen and was already jaded, so I was careful to cultivate the same ennui whenever we were together. In private I hugged the memory of his kiss to my heart, knowing it was stupid, that I was stupid to believe in something as dumb and flowery as love at first sight.
Maybe second sight. And lust, definitely.
It was the second day of orientation. I was trying to decide between Drama and English, while Everglade had perched on the side of a fountain and was already engrossed in the schedule for her Women’s Studies elective.
“I swear if anyone mentions my mother as a feminist icon I will fucking plotz,” she said, dangling a foot in the water. “So she flashed her beaver at Rock In Rio once – like it makes her Susan B. Anthony or something.”
I scratched the nape of my neck and adjusted my sunglasses. We’d all seen the picture – hard to miss it. The most unsettling part of it was knowing she was about three months pregnant with Everglade when she treated the world to the literal mother of all upskirt shots. “I never really understood why she did that,” I said.
“Same reason she does everything,” said Everglade. “So that people will pay attention to her. Trust me – she has no sense of sisterhood; she’s called me a cunt on more than one occasion.”