The Difference Between You and Me(5)

She’s an incredibly good kisser. I don’t… I can’t explain it. It’s not something I can explain.

When me and Michael kiss, it’s like I’m making out with a cut cantaloupe. He is the wettest, squishiest kisser on the planet. He’s so cute from a distance, you know, he’s such a good-looking guy, like a male model practically, but then when he goes to kiss me it’s like all the muscles in his face go slack and his lips get all spongy and loose and he opens his loose face and sort of lays his spongy lips all over me and drools his melon-juice spit into my mouth. It’s horrible. I don’t mean to criticize him, I’m sure lots of other girls would think he was a totally amazing kisser, it’s just… sometimes I have to pretend he’s getting too powerful and intense and I push him off me, but really I’m pushing him off me because he’s getting too disgusting. One time he kissed me so wetly for so long that his drool actually dripped down my neck. Sometimes right when I’m about to fall asleep, I suddenly remember the feeling of his spit sliding down my neck and I wake up so fast and hard my heart starts pounding in my chest and it takes me, like, hours to fall back to sleep.

It’s not his fault. He just gets really excited, like a dog. Like a sweet, slobbery golden retriever.

When Jesse Halberstam kisses me, she’s really focused and really intense. She puts her hands on the sides of my face to hold me where she wants me, or she winds her fingers up in my hair and tugs it tight, and somehow, just by the way she touches me, she makes my mouth open, she makes my eyes close, she makes me breathe faster and faster until I feel dizzy and I think I might black out. Sometimes when she’s kissing me, I swear to God, the edges of my body melt and I become sort of part of her. Sometimes when she kisses me I forget my own name.

But then when I go home again I remember. I know who I am. I’m Emily Miller.





3





Jesse


The frozen veggie burritos are in the oven. The prewashed organic lettuce is in the salad bowl. The radio is on in the den: All Things Considered—familiar, muted horn salute, the blurred murmur of NPR voices. Jesse is on one side of the kitchen table, and her parents are on the other.

“What is this, a show trial?” Jesse demands. “A firing squad?”

“This is not a firing squad,” her father says gently. Jesse’s father has a beard and a bald spot, half-glasses, and a permanent, ever-changing sweater vest. His voice is rich and resonant as a cello solo; he smells of Rooibos tea.

“When the firing squad starts, you won’t have to ask,” her mother says sharply. Jesse’s mother has super-short, bright white hair—growing in finally after the chemo last spring—and little round John Lennon glasses. Her arms are crossed over her favorite T-shirt, which is green with big white letters that read: DARFUR IS HAPPENING NOW. She smells of soap and Wite-Out. She almost always keeps one eyebrow raised in rueful disbelief.

“This is a conversation,” Jesse’s father says, “about what happened at school today.”

“I don’t really feel like having a conversation about what happened at school today.” Jesse shrugs.

“Well, you’re gonna,” snaps her mother. Jesse’s father lays a restraining hand lightly on his wife’s arm.

“Sweetheart,” he says to Jesse, “it’s not that we don’t respect your feelings about pep rallies—”

“Pep rallies revolt me,” Jesse interrupts.

“And we respect that. You have every right to those feelings. But handling those feelings by crawling through a bathroom window—”

“Unsuccessfully,” her mother points out.

“Handling those perfectly legitimate, valid feelings by crawling through a bathroom window, sweetheart, is a maladaptive coping strategy that—”

“Shrinkydink.” Jesse cuts him off.

“I’m sorry, I’ll rephrase.” Her father has agreed not to use terms from his family therapy practice with his daughter except in extreme emotional emergencies. “By choosing this way of handling your feelings you… you complicated things, you made things harder on yourself, you—”

“You screwed up,” her mother interrupts, impatient. “Is this NYU-bound behavior? This bathroom-window Keystone Kops routine?”

“Fran.” Now Jesse’s father lays his hand on his wife’s shoulder, but she shrugs it off.

“I’m pissed, Arthur, I don’t want to be calmed down, I want to be angry!”

“I hear you, but—”

“What were you thinking?” Fran stares her daughter down. “I hate to have to say that, it’s such a parenting cliché, but what on earth was going through your mind at that moment?”