“I mean, we didn’t even talk about it once on Saturday. We just let it happen, then moved on like it was nothin’.”
“I should’ve been more … careful with your feelings.” He lets out a sigh at the window, then peers over his shoulder at me. “I’m sorry I kissed you, Bobby.”
His intense eyes are on me, burning me, petrifying me.
Hearing him say those precise words, I suddenly find myself lost in a tumbling stack of backpedaling thoughts. I’m not sorry you kissed me, I suddenly want to say.
I’m not sorry at all.
Jimmy turns to face me completely, then sticks out a hand toward mine. “I promise not to go forcin’ any kisses on you again.”
My eyes drop to his outstretched hand.
I swallow once.
“I’ll be your best buddy again,” he goes on. “I’ve learned my lesson. I overstepped. I crossed a line. Won’t happen again.”
My heart pounds like a drum.
I’m fishing for words to say, searching for a length of rope to climb myself out of this hole, but I’ve gone and dug myself in it too deep with all those protests I made just minutes ago.
Suddenly all of my resolve breaks. A bitter pinch of regret sits in my stomach where my dinner’s supposed to be. It weighs three hundred pounds, and it’s as prickly as a cactus.
Is this really what I wanted?
“Do we have a deal?” Jimmy asks me.
I gently accept his hand and give it a loose shake. I don’t look into his eyes when I quietly reply: “Deal.”
10
JIMMY
I stir my bowl of cereal, staring at the little Cheerios dancing lazily around each other in a shallow pool of milk.
Mama’s been at the kitchen counter jotting notes into her big yellow spiral notebook, making tiny sighs now and then. She leans one way on the counter, then another way, then props an elbow on it and rests her chin on her hand sulkily.
She’s in a mood.
After her nineteenth sigh, I’ve had enough. “Mama.”
“Sweetheart, I’m tryin’ to concentrate.” She squints down at her notebook, bouncing the pen on her lips like a bongo.
I lay my spoon in the bowl, letting the Cheerios claim their victory over me, and get up from the table to cross the kitchen. I hop onto the counter by her.
She looks up at me, mildly annoyed, her face pinched. “Get off the counter, boy, didn’t I raise you right?”
“Mama, what’s going on with you lately? I hate seein’ you like this, all bothered and bad-mooded all the time.”
“Why aren’t you bringin’ Bobby by the house anymore?”
She can never just answer a question. “He’s got a job now.”
“So? Have him stop by after work. I’ll have Jacky-Ann cook us up a lovely dinner.” Her eyes narrow. “Or is Patricia going to have some problem with that?”
“Mama, you can’t fault her for wanting her son around. Bobby was here all last summer, and that was just as much my fault as it was yours.”
To my surprise, her eyes soften at my words, and then just as quickly, she shrugs. “Sure, maybe you’re right. I ought to make amends with Patricia.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “Make amends …? For what? Y’all aren’t enemies. The battle’s all in your head, Mama.”
“She raised a sweet boy in that Bobby,” she says, ignoring my question. “I’ll have Jacky-Ann make her a pie and send it to her house. Maybe I can have his parents over for dinner sometime. You and Bobby are such good friends, we all oughta be friends.”
This is certainly a sharp change in pace. “Well, Papa and his papa are friends since school. Guess it makes sense, don’t it?”
“It sure does,” she agrees, her voice flat and tired. “He seein’ anyone, that Bobby boy? Any pretty young man caught his eye?”
Suddenly I’m back in the hotel room staring Bobby in his eyes.
And he’s staring back, uncertain, the tension ripe between us.
“No,” I answer. “He isn’t seein’ anyone. Single as a Pringle.”
“Hmm.” She jots another quick thing down in her spiral, like something interesting just occurred to her.
I glance down at her notebook, my eyebrows pulling together. “What’re you busyin’ yourself with, anyway?”
“Plans.”
My mama’s so helpfully vague sometimes. “With what?”
“Oh, you know.” Her jaw tightens and her tone turns smart. “Just ‘cause Billy decides he wants to hold the Spruce Ball at the McPherson’s doesn’t mean I can’t still have my part in it, doing all the heavy-lifting. They need my connections, anyway.”
Despite the slightly embittered edge in her voice, I give her an approving nod. “That’s mighty big of you, Mama.”
“Oh, I know.” She jots down something else, then sucks on the end of her pen thoughtfully.
I pull my phone out, check it one more time, then pocket it with an inner sigh and stare off at the glass doors leading out to the patio, the stone walkway, and the blinding, sun-sparkling pool beyond. It’s Wednesday, and I haven’t gotten to hang with Bobby at all since that tension-filled Sunday night when I shook his hand and agreed never to kiss him again.