Twelve
Twelve
AUGUST 1996
“Are you going to miss her, Grant?” my mother asked.
I nodded, knowing she was talking about Tess. Even though Tess wanted to keep our relationship a secret, it was impossible to hide it from my mother.
“She’s everything to me,” I said. It should have been an embarrassing admission, but it was so true it was impossible to hide.
My mother smiled as she tried to smooth the comforter on my bed. My room was a mess, even more so than usual. There were piles of clothes in every corner, a locker room’s worth of old sports equipment accumulating in the center, and a stack of school papers and yearbooks that seemed like things I should keep but would probably never look at again.
I had a duffel bag filled with the clothes I thought I’d need for college. My mother bought a bunch of sheets and towels that seemed too nice for the amount of time they would spend on the floor of my dorm room. After four years of boarding school, packing was routine. I didn’t think too much about it.
My mother should’ve had a similar reaction, but every time I mentioned leaving, she cried. She seemed to have red-rimmed eyes most of the time these days.
“Are you going to miss me?” my mother asked, a childlike quality to her voice.
“Yeah,” I said automatically. “I’ve had some practice missing you, though.”
The words came out before I realized their impact. Yet it was true, after boarding school, I was used to being away from my mother. We both knew that even when she was around, she wasn’t completely there.
I tried to recover. “I’ve loved being here this summer, Mom. I want to spend more time here. With you.”
“Yes. Maybe. We will have to see what your father says about that.” She smiled politely, the kind of expression you use around strangers—not your son.
Long ago, I gave up on trying to understand my parents, but something was bothering my mother more than her usual moods. My father had been spending more time at the house. Even though he was technically here, I saw him less, if that was possible. His car was in the driveway. His briefcase was on the kitchen table; muffled voices escaped from his home office; occasionally, he left ties on the back of the couch. There were signs that he was around, but we never saw each other. Forget having any type of father-and-son chat before I left for Princeton, which was fine with me. I’d rather not feel like I’d failed college before I’d even started.
But mostly, I knew he was around because of the yelling. I never thought I’d long for the stretches of silence between my parents that used to be their primary mode of interaction. I’d developed a few coping mechanisms, mostly Dave Matthews played as loudly as my Walkman allowed. I heard them start to argue and turned on the music, muffling my father’s shouts and my mother’s tearful screams in return.
When I was younger and they would fight, I’d run into the room, begging them to stop. I’d stand in front of my mother, a ten-year-old protector. But after a while, I realized that she didn’t want my help; instead, she’d hide from me for days afterward, my care regulated even more so to the nanny. I suppose I was the worst reminder. Eventually, I realized it was better if I stayed away from their fights and stopped trying to protect her.
In a school assembly one year, we had to watch this movie about an abusive boyfriend. It started with a push, and then escalated to a slap, and one day he strangled his girlfriend. The whole point of the movie was that something small can turn into something bigger and girls needed to look out for warning signs in relationships. At least that was what the guidance counselor said before she moved on to a discussion of the food pyramid.
My life was filled with warning signs, but my experience wasn’t anything like that movie. My father was always a steady level of asshole. He grabbed, and pushed, and occasionally slapped, but he didn’t care enough to escalate it further than that. It was almost as if we were beneath him. Or maybe he knew that his image depended on my mother staying and me being able to fake a smile when needed.
When they settled on separate homes and boarding school for me, it was a relief. If we were all apart, no one would get hurt.
“Will you be okay when I’m gone?” I asked.
“Of course,” she replied, almost reactively. “It is not the child’s job to worry about the parent.”
This was always how these conversations ended, curt directives from my mother reminding me that this wasn’t a topic we discussed.
“Go see your girl, Grant,” my mother said. “I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
I nodded, heading down the stairs and through the kitchen. I didn’t want to waste a single moment with Tess. As I left out the back door, I noticed the pile of wine bottles, wincing at the thought that I took out the trash yesterday.
I started walking toward Tess’s cottage, hoping I would find her alone. Her mother had been working late hours. Tess shrugged when I asked what her mother did all day. I knew feeding the staff that worked at the Milton property was a big job, but she’d been doing that since the beginning of summer. It was only recently that Tess’s mother had been working late nights, researching recipes for elaborate meals with multiple courses. Tess thought her mother was trying to do everything she could to impress Ms. Milton before the end of the summer, since she still hadn’t gotten an extended offer to work in the fall. When I asked Tess what would happen if her mother didn’t get the job offer, she would shudder.
Tess didn’t want to go back to living in her grandparents’ old trailer and she didn’t know if her mother could get her job back at the resort. This summer was a gamble for them, with stakes that were so foreign to me.
I was thankful that Tess’s mother was busy, because it meant more time for us to be alone. We spent most nights in the field between the two properties. Lust taking priority, followed by hours of lying on our backs, staring at the stars, our conversations competing with the cicada songs.
This day, I jogged over to the Milton property, immediately regretting my choice. I should have driven, but Tess was so nervous about my car being seen. Instead of showing up like a normal human being, I appeared at her doorstep dripping in sweat.
I knocked, but there was no answer, so I walked around the back of the cottage. Tess was lying on a towel spread in the grass with headphones on. She had a stack of mixtapes, probably songs she recorded off the radio.
I walked up behind her, my figure casting a shadow over her body. She sat up and pulled off her headphones, a giant smile spreading over her face.
My eyebrows raised as I asked, “Aren’t you hot?”
“Melting. Isn’t the weather going to cool off soon?”
Tess was wearing a pale blue bikini. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head. There was a copy of Seventeen magazine in her hands, which she tossed to the side.
“What are you reading?”
“Embarrassing shit about silly girls.”
I laughed. “Doesn’t seem like your type of magazine.”
Last week, Tess was reading The Grapes of Wrath . For fun. She had stacks of books that she tore through these past couple months. Since she wasn’t sure where she was going to school because of the uncertainty with her mother’s job, she was making sure she’d read every possible book that might be on a summer reading list. And she smiled when she said that.
Tess picked up the magazine, flipping through it casually. “It isn’t my typical choice, but there was an article I wanted to read.”
I grabbed the magazine and eyed the cover, asking, “The story about Claire Danes?”
“Nope, the headline below that. ‘My Surprise Summer Romance.’”
“Pick up any good tips?”
“Lots.” Tess flipped to the story. She read aloud, sarcasm dripping from each word. “‘How to keep the spark alive when the weather chills,’ ‘Body warmth is more powerful than weather warmth.’ It’s an encyclopedia of information.”
I laughed and grabbed the magazine from her hands, tossing it aside. “We don’t need this.” I leaned in for a kiss, but she pulled back. “Are you worried, Tess?”
She shook her head quickly and I pulled her onto my lap. She nooked her head under my chin and I wrapped my arms around her tightly.
“I know we have only a few days left before I leave for Princeton, but we’re going to make this work.”
Tess responded with a quick “yeah.”
I wanted to say more, but I’d spent countless hours reassuring her. Nothing I said seemed to make a difference.
After a few moments of silence, Tess tentatively asked, “Are you excited?”
“Yes and no. I want to get away from them.” I gestured over the hill toward my mother’s house. “I want to be on my own, without my father snooping over my shoulder. I think life will be different at Princeton, but my father has this way of being everywhere, even when he’s not physically in a room. I’m afraid it will be the same as it’s always been.”
“You can make it different, Grant. It might not be easy, but if you don’t break away from your father now, you never will. Promise me you’ll figure out what you really want. Don’t let him be the voice in your head.”
“I’ll try,” I said, because it was impossible to tell Tess no. There was nothing I wanted more than to break away from my father, but I didn’t think she had any idea about the extent of his power. “What about you?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. “Excited for your senior year?”
“I’d just like to know where I’m going to school. My mother keeps insisting that missing the first week of classes isn’t a big deal. She’s sure that Ms. Milton is going to offer her a job any day and we can move here permanently. But it’s driving me crazy. It’s not the way I thought my senior year would start.”
“Do you want to go back to your old school?” Even as I asked the question, I hoped her answer was no, because I didn’t want to lose even a single day with Tess.
“Not really. My mom said I could go back to Hot Springs and stay with a friend of my grandmother’s. But I said no.”
I smirked when I said, “Because you don’t want to leave me?”
She scowled, poking me in the rib. “Because it would be stupid to start one school and then transfer after two weeks. And I know I can catch up on a few weeks of missed classes. Plus my grandmother’s friend is bossy and smells weird. And I don’t want to leave you.”
“That’s a lot of reasons. I’m glad I fit in there somewhere.”
Tess looked down, her chocolate eyes shaded by her long lashes. “You more than fit in, Grant. It’s going to be so strange not talking to you every day.”
“We can write, we can talk on the phone, and as soon as orientation is over, I’ll take a bus to visit you.”
“Grant, please don’t make promises you aren’t going to keep.”
“I won’t. Don’t you want me to visit you, Tess?”
“Of course. But I also know you’re going to be in a new, exciting place. Sitting on a bus for six hours to visit a high-schooler isn’t going to be your priority.”
“Tess, you are my priority. There is no party, no new place that is ever going to feel more exciting than you.”
“Okay,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper.
I swallowed and said the thing I’d been thinking for weeks but had been too scared to vocalize. “Sometimes I think I feel more for you than you feel for me.”
“Because this body is irresistible,” Tess said, skimming a hand down her legs before laughing loudly.
This was the way Tess masked her insecurities. She was unbelievably beautiful. And yet she seemed convinced that she wasn’t enough for me. So she made jokes. Occasionally, she’d point to pictures of blond models on the covers of magazines, all boobs and legs, and say, “That will never be me. Are you sure you don’t want that?” I’d stare at her dark eyes, her long hair, and her smooth skin and know the mystery of Tess would always amaze me.
I looked away. “Tess, I’m serious.” I knew she was trying to make light of this conversation.
“I’m sorry. I won’t joke.” She took a deep breath and then looked into my eyes. I was silent, waiting for what she was going to say. “Grant, I love you, but—”
I reached for her and cut her off with a kiss. I didn’t care what else she had to say. I’d waited weeks to hear those words out of her mouth. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter if she said it back. But I felt a wave of relief that Tess Murphy, the most beautiful, frustrating, inspiring person I had ever met, loved me back.
Once we started kissing, it was the same as it always was with the two of us. Her body was a magnet and I couldn’t pull myself off, even though it was the middle of the day and we were outside.
I rolled her over and propped myself up, elbows on either side of her body as I kissed her lips again and again.
She put her hands on either side of my face, staring into my eyes. “I love you, Grant Alexander. Exactly as you are. Even your off-key humming on our walks.”
I bent down and crushed her mouth with mine, knowing that there was no one else that loved me without wanting something more, to change me, to use me. I knew without a doubt that being loved by Tess was the best gift I would ever get.
She nibbled on her lip and her eyebrow cocked upward as she pulled off her top and slid her bikini bottom down. I reached into my back pocket for a condom. We came together quickly and fiercely, our bodies having spent weeks practicing this reciprocation of movement. I watched Tess’s face as a chorus of I-love-yous echoed between our mouths, stolen declarations between frantic kisses.
When she wrapped her legs around me tighter, the sun beating on my back, her hair tumbling in every direction, I lost myself, hearing Tess’s breathing reach a fever pitch, her body tensing around mine.
We lay there, tangled in each other, the hot sun beaming on our exhausted bodies. Eventually, I reached for the towel and draped it over Tess before gathering my clothes.
As I got dressed, Tess looked up at me and said, “Promise me something, Grant.”
“Anything.”
“I’m not your obligation. I’m your want. You want to be with me and write me and call me. If that ever changes. If you meet someone else. If my life is too small for your new world, don’t stay with me out of obligation.”
“Tess, you are the most amazing person I’ve ever met. Being with you is a privilege.”
She grabbed her bikini top and slipped it over her body. “For now,” she said on an exhale.
“What does that mean?” I sat next to her as she finished getting dressed.
“It means we’re in a bubble here,” she said, gesturing around us. “I’m Tess and you’re Grant and there’s nothing else.”
“I don’t think that’s because of our location. That’s because of us.”
“Grant, we work right now because the outside world doesn’t matter. But in a few days, all of our differences are going to be magnified.”
I shook my head. “None of those differences matter. For the first time in my life, my world makes sense. It makes sense with you. I’m not going to let anything mess that up.”
As my arms wrapped around Tess, I thought I’d made a promise I could keep.