Read Online The Lucky Kind by Alyssa B. Sheinmel - Free Book Online
Authors: Alyssa B. Sheinmel
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better before you find out.”
“I guess. I just never thought I didn’t know my parents before.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” I sit up and rub my eyes. I’m scared if I don’t get off the phone with her soon I’ll tell her about Sam Roth, even though I decided that I wouldn’t.
“I better go call Stevie before he begins to wonder what happened this afternoon. He’ll start a rumor that I followed you home and you had to call the cops on me.”
“That’s pretty extreme.”
“Not for Stevie. It’d be the only reason he’d be able to come up with for why I couldn’t call him.”
“You get one phone call in jail, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but even Stevie would know that I’d probably have to use it to call my parents. Or a lawyer.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
I like to think that maybe I’m the last person she’ll have talked to before she goes to sleep tonight.
My Girlfriend
M y girlfriend has thick brown hair and skinny white legs and a dark brown freckle hidden behind her right knee.
Every weekday morning she meets Stevie and me, and together we lean against the pizza place and watch the underclassmen and feel infinitely superior. Then Stevie goes inside, and Eden and I sneak around the corner and kiss until our lips are sore, or until we realize that we’re going to be late for class.
Stevie even says “here” for both of us in homeroom to buy us an extra few minutes before first period. Somehow, the teachers have yet to catch on to Stevie’s high-pitched impression of Eden’s voice.
Eden’s kisses are always different; I make a joke that they’re like snowflakes, no two quite the same. There’s always the familiar taste and feel of her, but it changes depending on her mood, on the time of day, on whether it’s sunny or cold outside. When we kiss in the rain, her face is slippery under my fingers.
On Friday nights, we go to the movies, even though I joke that that makes us like kids growing up in the suburbs thirty years ago. I want to ask my dad whether that’s actually what he did on Friday nights when he was in high school, but I can’t, since I’d first have to tell him about Eden, and I’m not telling him about Eden yet.
Eden says it can’t really be all that suburban an experience since we take subways and try to go to theaters not on the Upper West Side so that we won’t bump into all the kids from school. We go to the enormous movie theaters in Times Square with the tourists, to the smaller ones below 14th Street that play independent movies, and to the one on West 23rd Street where both of us can’t help noticing we’re among the minority of straight couples there.
We don’t make out in movie theaters because Eden says that would be a waste of the exorbitant ticket prices. I say that I am worth significantly more than eleven dollars and fifty cents, and when she laughs at me in the dark theater, her teeth are so white they almost glow. We don’t make out but we hold hands, and Eden’s fingers are so short that when they interlace with mine, they barely hit my knuckles. This makes me feel tall.
After the movies, we go for dinner or drinks, and sometimes Stevie is with us. It’s colder now, and Eden is always stealing my scarf, and I complain but I actually like it, my scarf like some Northeastern version of a pin so people know that we’re a couple. When she hands it back to me, it always smells like her, sweet but smoky, and once I fell asleep holding it, like a child’s stuffed animal or a security blanket. And when I sleep, I have dreams that she is kissing my hands.
I keep saying that I’m going to get her a scarf for Christmas, because at this rate my neck’ll barely make it through the cold of the new year. And Eden says I better come up with something less prosaic than a scarf, and that makes me happy because not only does it mean that my girlfriend uses words like “prosaic,” but it also means she thinks
“I guess. I just never thought I didn’t know my parents before.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” I sit up and rub my eyes. I’m scared if I don’t get off the phone with her soon I’ll tell her about Sam Roth, even though I decided that I wouldn’t.
“I better go call Stevie before he begins to wonder what happened this afternoon. He’ll start a rumor that I followed you home and you had to call the cops on me.”
“That’s pretty extreme.”
“Not for Stevie. It’d be the only reason he’d be able to come up with for why I couldn’t call him.”
“You get one phone call in jail, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but even Stevie would know that I’d probably have to use it to call my parents. Or a lawyer.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
I like to think that maybe I’m the last person she’ll have talked to before she goes to sleep tonight.
My Girlfriend
M y girlfriend has thick brown hair and skinny white legs and a dark brown freckle hidden behind her right knee.
Every weekday morning she meets Stevie and me, and together we lean against the pizza place and watch the underclassmen and feel infinitely superior. Then Stevie goes inside, and Eden and I sneak around the corner and kiss until our lips are sore, or until we realize that we’re going to be late for class.
Stevie even says “here” for both of us in homeroom to buy us an extra few minutes before first period. Somehow, the teachers have yet to catch on to Stevie’s high-pitched impression of Eden’s voice.
Eden’s kisses are always different; I make a joke that they’re like snowflakes, no two quite the same. There’s always the familiar taste and feel of her, but it changes depending on her mood, on the time of day, on whether it’s sunny or cold outside. When we kiss in the rain, her face is slippery under my fingers.
On Friday nights, we go to the movies, even though I joke that that makes us like kids growing up in the suburbs thirty years ago. I want to ask my dad whether that’s actually what he did on Friday nights when he was in high school, but I can’t, since I’d first have to tell him about Eden, and I’m not telling him about Eden yet.
Eden says it can’t really be all that suburban an experience since we take subways and try to go to theaters not on the Upper West Side so that we won’t bump into all the kids from school. We go to the enormous movie theaters in Times Square with the tourists, to the smaller ones below 14th Street that play independent movies, and to the one on West 23rd Street where both of us can’t help noticing we’re among the minority of straight couples there.
We don’t make out in movie theaters because Eden says that would be a waste of the exorbitant ticket prices. I say that I am worth significantly more than eleven dollars and fifty cents, and when she laughs at me in the dark theater, her teeth are so white they almost glow. We don’t make out but we hold hands, and Eden’s fingers are so short that when they interlace with mine, they barely hit my knuckles. This makes me feel tall.
After the movies, we go for dinner or drinks, and sometimes Stevie is with us. It’s colder now, and Eden is always stealing my scarf, and I complain but I actually like it, my scarf like some Northeastern version of a pin so people know that we’re a couple. When she hands it back to me, it always smells like her, sweet but smoky, and once I fell asleep holding it, like a child’s stuffed animal or a security blanket. And when I sleep, I have dreams that she is kissing my hands.
I keep saying that I’m going to get her a scarf for Christmas, because at this rate my neck’ll barely make it through the cold of the new year. And Eden says I better come up with something less prosaic than a scarf, and that makes me happy because not only does it mean that my girlfriend uses words like “prosaic,” but it also means she thinks
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