Chapter Six:
"Mom, I'm heading out." I called as I slung my pack over my shoulder and started
to leave.
"Great, Kristy. Where are you going?" She asked from the library.
"Oh, just to the movies with... a friend..." I said nonchalantly. "I'll be back
before it gets too late."
"Oh, wait, Kristy." Mom said, suddenly appearing. "After your done, do you think
that you could stop by the store and get a
carton of milk? Just on your way back?"
"Sure mom." I said shifting from one foot to another. "I... I can do that."
"Good." She said, then paused and looked at me with a soft smile on her face.
"You look nice."
"Thanks mom." I said, gazing down at my outfit. I was wearing a white tank vest
with eyelet material and blue denim shorts with
flowery designs along the edges of the pockets and hemline. She's always happy
when I steer in a different direction from jeans
and sweatshirts.
"Well... I'd better be going. The movie starts in an hour." I said, shrugging
and backing away towards the door.
"Okay. Have a good time." Mom said.
"I will. Thanks." I said. I opened the door and hurried out. Breathing a sigh of
relief I got my bike and started off towards Cary's
house. On the way there, I ran into Cary.
"Hey there." He greeted as I turned around to ride next to him.
"Hi." I said. "How was your morning?"
"Not too relaxing." Cary said. "For some reason he wanted me to take him down to
the gym to sign up for those gymnastics classes."
"Oh... well, I think I might have been responsible for that one." I told him. I
explained that Mariah took classes there and that
might have been a motive for Derek to join it.
Cary shook his head in disbelief. "Boy, he sure has it bad."
"I know he does. I feel kind of bad for him. He's been telling me how she
doesn't give him the time of day and he has no idea
about how to talk to her." I said.
As we rode, we talked about what we'd been up to the past year. Cary had his
piano lessons, creative writing groups and mostly
just keeping life from being boring and uninteresting. I told him about the
softball team, the Krushers (a softball team that I coach
for little kids) and I even found the courage to tell him about my father's
wedding the previous summer.
"And Sam was falling all over himself to talk to some guy who left you while you
were kids?" Cary asked incredulously. "I've
never seen him do that. Not even for a girl."
"I guess, deep down, he really wanted Patrick to become close to him." I shook
my head and laughed. "Charlie was precisely the
opposite. He went out of his way to stay AWAY from Patrick."
"You call your father Patrick?" Cary asked, looking at me oddly.
"Yeah, I don't feel comfortable calling him my father anymore." I said, looking
down at the pavement.
Cary looked thoughtful before looking at me with sympathy (which I hated). "I
don't know how I could ever call my dad by
his first name."
"Well, your father is still with you and family." I explained. "You're always
going to have that security with you where ever you go."
Cary nodded as if I had made some ground-breaking, earth-stopping comment.
"You're right."
"I always am." I said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. I didn't want the
date... or... whatever it was to start off sour. I looked
at what he was wearing and decided that it was an improvement. He wasn't wearing
those tie-dye shirts but he wasn't dressed
up to the nine either. He was normal, wearing denim jeans and a neat red
Hawaiian print shirt.
"Does your family travel a lot?" I asked.
"What?" He replied.
"You have a lot of Hawaiian shirts and souvenirs from all over in your house." I
said.
"Oh. Well, not really. I mean, my brothers and I don't. Every now and then mom
and dad travel to visit relatives or spend their
anniversaries in some part of the world. My mom's a travel agent so it's real
easy for them." he explained.
"Don't they ever take you guys along?" I asked him.
"Naw, not really. Only when it really counts. Christmas, summer vacations, that
sort of thing. But they mostly go alone." Cary
said. "They have anniversaries for everything. The first date, first kiss,
weddings, first time they made lo--" Cary suddenly cut
himself off.
I looked up at him curiously, wondering what made him stop. "First time they
made what?" I pressed.
"I just realized that I can't say that. Actually, I'm not really supposed to
know about that stuff." Cary said grinning at me good-humoredly.
"Oh." I looked down at the ground and blushed lightly.
The first time they made love. That was what he was going to say. We kept the
conversation light and out of our families up until
we got to the theater. We got in line to buy our tickets and stared at all the
posters of present movies and soon to come features.
Once we got our tickets, we went inside and got some popcorn and drinks before
going into the theater and finding our seats.
As we sat down, Cary motioned to a couple in front of us that were locked in a
passionate embrace and kissing rather intensely.
"Alan and I used to do this all the time." He whispered, taking a few pieces of
popcorn out of his bag.
"Cary--" I whispered harshly, but he silenced me by holding up a finger.
"No, no, no, it's really cool. Just watch." He looked at me before tossing the
popcorn onto the couple. The popcorn stuck to
the girl's hair, but neither of them seemed to notice.
I looked away, trying my hardest to think of him as childish and immature, but
what he did WAS pretty funny. In a strange way.
We each took turns flinging popcorn at the couple who--amazingly--were oblivious
to everything around them. It was hilarious,
they looked like Christmas trees with chains of popcorn and kernels hanging from
them. Okay, so it was mean, but... Just then,
the lights dimmed and the previews started. We saw a lot of trailors,
particularly for A Walk to Remember, The Mothman Prophecies,
and Crossroads, the movie that Britney Spears was in. As the trailor for
Crossroads played, a look of growing disgust appeared
on Cary's face and afterwards he complained to me, "God, I HATE her."
There was loud laughter from all around us and Cary realized that people had
heard what he said--and most of them agreed
with his opinion. I hid a smile as Cary stood and took a bow then sat down,
trying to appear cool.
"Are movies with you always this eventful?" I asked, taking a sip from my large
7UP.
"You should have seen me when Sam and I went to watch America's Sweethearts." He
said. "My cousin, Samantha had asked
Sam out when she came to visit. Sam had no idea how to turn her down--the nice
guy that he is--" I snorted loudly "--so he begged
me to come along with them and sit in the back to keep them from getting
too...um, friendly."
"I'll bet you had no trouble with that." I commented.
As the movie started, the couple broke apart and realized that they had popcorn
all over them. Cary and I shared a glance
before stifling our laughter. How was the movie? Well, brilliant, is only one
way to describe it. Mel Gibson is one of my very
favorite actors, I love all of his movies and this was no exception. I never cry
during movies, that just isn't my style, but at the end
of this one (and during several parts throughout) I was weeping, my face wet
with tears. Cary looked over me as I sobbed into
my popcorn bag, he had tears in his eyes as well, but was determined not to show
it. Just to show how 'macho' he was he
grunted and stood up to stretch. "Well, that just SUCKED." At that, all the
women around us sobbed uncontrollably, one lady
even hit him with her handbag as she passed by. "Insensitive jerk." she mumbled.
Cary's eyes were wide and he stared at me. "See the trouble you've caused?"
Shaking my head I stood up. "Come on, let's go."
Cary nodded and we left to get our bikes out of the bike rack.
"What did you REALLY think about the movie?" I asked.
"Honestly? It was awesome." Cary said, as we rode off. "Do you want to get
something to eat? Myself, I'm starved."
"Sure." I said. I could go for something to eat.
"Why don't we go to the new Chinese restaurant by the mall?" Cary suggested and
I agreed.
Hey, the movie turned out okay, the restaurant couldn't be much worse.
"So, that's how the Baby-sitters' Club was formed." I said as we rode home.
"Wow..." Cary said. "I just... wow."
"Of course things were much more simpler before you came along." I said
teasingly. "You and your Mischeif Knights gave us
more than our share of troubles."
"Well, we try." Cary said, grinning. "But I haven't been all trials and
tribulations for you, have I Kristin? I mean, there was that
time that I did that autobiography on you."
"Yeah."
"And the time that I helped Mary Anne get revenge on Cokie."
"You weren't the only one." I challenged.
"And the time I opened Alan Gray's locker for Claudia when she left that note in
there." Cary said, ticking off the list with his
fingers. "What happened there, anyway?"
I looked at him and explained how Claudia had a huge crush on Jeremy Rudolph
(who was dating Stacey at the time) and
decided to tell him how she felt. She couldn't do it face to face, so she
decided to write a note. But instead of slipping it into
Jeremy's locker, she put it into Alan Gray's The Scum of the Eight Grade.
"Claudia looked like she swallowed a fly." I said, laughing at the memory. "She
even wanted me to get some dynamite to see if
I could open it. Then I told her that you could probably open it."
Cary stared at me, opened mouthed at my long-winded description. Then he put on
a Cuban accent, "Gee, Lucy, do you think
we can pull it off?"
I laughed at his impression of Desi Arnez.
"That's a goo' one." I said.
We stopped in front of my house and Cary followed me up to the front porch.
"Well, this was... interesting." I said as he leaned against the railing.
"Interesting?" Cary repeated. "Interesting as in, appealing, lively...fun?"
"Yes, fun." I agreed, smiling. "It was fun, Cary. It was... actually better than
I expected."
"Really?" He asked.
"Yeah, really." I sighed. "At least I didn't have to wear a dress."
Cary laughed, really roared and I allowed him the satisfaction of a small
chuckle.
"You know, Kristy, you really do look better in a dress." He said.
"You should take a picture, it'll last longer." I said.
"No, seriously." He insisted, stepping up to me. "You look really, pretty... I
mean, all dolled up and not as crappy as you are
when you're in gym class."
"Oh, I bet you say that to ALL the girls." I said with a dramatic flair.
"No, just to you." He said, he stared me for a long moment before reaching
behind me and undoing my ponytail.
"What--hey!" I protested, but he silenced me by putting his index on my lips.
He looked around and picked a pink fuschia off of the vine growing around the
porch. Brushing my hair away from my eyes,
he tucked the flower neatly behind my ear and rested his hands behind my neck.
"There, see? Just as I thought." He said, justifying his case. "You do look..."
He trailed off and I felt my heart flutter wildly again, those damn butterflies
in my stomach banging against my insides. I could
barely swallow as Cary struggled unsuccessfully to finish his sentence and his
lips drew closer and closer to mine. I closed my
eyes and felt the friction shock of electricity as our lips touched for the very
first time. Without thinking, I broke away, shocked,
as if it had never happened.
His thumb traced over my cheek and I felt my legs turn to jell-o. I clutched
onto his back and pulled him closer to kiss me
again. This time it was more natural feeling and warm, my mind was having
trouble functioning. I was kissing Cary Retlin. And
I was liking it. Cary's tongue slipped into my mouth and my eyes shot open as
our tongues touched, it felt weird, but a good
weird. After ten seconds, Cary pulled away, as breathless and amazed as me.
"Wow..." He whispered, his arms still around me. "Kristy, I..."
I looked up at him and waited, my mind blurry and confused.
"Kristy, I have to be honest with you." Cary said, his voice raspy. "I've
thought about that moment way longer than just a minute
before we arrived."
My heart caught in my throat as it gave a leap. Cary had thought about this
before, he'd been having these feelings for a while.
"For how long?" I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Ever since...we did that project for Mrs. Simon's class." He said. "...Maybe
even before that."
"Before..." I recurred and without a moment's pause, I kissed him again. Cary
offered no resistance as he cupped my cheek in
his hand and pressed his chest against me. I could feel his heart beating almost
as rapidly as mine and I'm sure he could feel mine
as well. My mind got so fuzzy and distorted that I lost my balance and had to
grab onto Cary and the two of us fell back against
the wall. I had to pull away or else I wouldn't be able to stop and if that
happened then someone (namely Sam or Charlie) would
see us.
"Cary," I murmured as I gently pushed him away. He didn't allow me to separate
us by more than a few inches.
"Kristy." He said in a voice that belonged on a much older guy, it was deep,
mature. "We have to do this again someday."
"Definitely." I replied, not feeling any need to say more.
"Mom, I'm heading out." I called as I slung my pack over my shoulder and started
to leave.
"Great, Kristy. Where are you going?" She asked from the library.
"Oh, just to the movies with... a friend..." I said nonchalantly. "I'll be back
before it gets too late."
"Oh, wait, Kristy." Mom said, suddenly appearing. "After your done, do you think
that you could stop by the store and get a
carton of milk? Just on your way back?"
"Sure mom." I said shifting from one foot to another. "I... I can do that."
"Good." She said, then paused and looked at me with a soft smile on her face.
"You look nice."
"Thanks mom." I said, gazing down at my outfit. I was wearing a white tank vest
with eyelet material and blue denim shorts with
flowery designs along the edges of the pockets and hemline. She's always happy
when I steer in a different direction from jeans
and sweatshirts.
"Well... I'd better be going. The movie starts in an hour." I said, shrugging
and backing away towards the door.
"Okay. Have a good time." Mom said.
"I will. Thanks." I said. I opened the door and hurried out. Breathing a sigh of
relief I got my bike and started off towards Cary's
house. On the way there, I ran into Cary.
"Hey there." He greeted as I turned around to ride next to him.
"Hi." I said. "How was your morning?"
"Not too relaxing." Cary said. "For some reason he wanted me to take him down to
the gym to sign up for those gymnastics classes."
"Oh... well, I think I might have been responsible for that one." I told him. I
explained that Mariah took classes there and that
might have been a motive for Derek to join it.
Cary shook his head in disbelief. "Boy, he sure has it bad."
"I know he does. I feel kind of bad for him. He's been telling me how she
doesn't give him the time of day and he has no idea
about how to talk to her." I said.
As we rode, we talked about what we'd been up to the past year. Cary had his
piano lessons, creative writing groups and mostly
just keeping life from being boring and uninteresting. I told him about the
softball team, the Krushers (a softball team that I coach
for little kids) and I even found the courage to tell him about my father's
wedding the previous summer.
"And Sam was falling all over himself to talk to some guy who left you while you
were kids?" Cary asked incredulously. "I've
never seen him do that. Not even for a girl."
"I guess, deep down, he really wanted Patrick to become close to him." I shook
my head and laughed. "Charlie was precisely the
opposite. He went out of his way to stay AWAY from Patrick."
"You call your father Patrick?" Cary asked, looking at me oddly.
"Yeah, I don't feel comfortable calling him my father anymore." I said, looking
down at the pavement.
Cary looked thoughtful before looking at me with sympathy (which I hated). "I
don't know how I could ever call my dad by
his first name."
"Well, your father is still with you and family." I explained. "You're always
going to have that security with you where ever you go."
Cary nodded as if I had made some ground-breaking, earth-stopping comment.
"You're right."
"I always am." I said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood. I didn't want the
date... or... whatever it was to start off sour. I looked
at what he was wearing and decided that it was an improvement. He wasn't wearing
those tie-dye shirts but he wasn't dressed
up to the nine either. He was normal, wearing denim jeans and a neat red
Hawaiian print shirt.
"Does your family travel a lot?" I asked.
"What?" He replied.
"You have a lot of Hawaiian shirts and souvenirs from all over in your house." I
said.
"Oh. Well, not really. I mean, my brothers and I don't. Every now and then mom
and dad travel to visit relatives or spend their
anniversaries in some part of the world. My mom's a travel agent so it's real
easy for them." he explained.
"Don't they ever take you guys along?" I asked him.
"Naw, not really. Only when it really counts. Christmas, summer vacations, that
sort of thing. But they mostly go alone." Cary
said. "They have anniversaries for everything. The first date, first kiss,
weddings, first time they made lo--" Cary suddenly cut
himself off.
I looked up at him curiously, wondering what made him stop. "First time they
made what?" I pressed.
"I just realized that I can't say that. Actually, I'm not really supposed to
know about that stuff." Cary said grinning at me good-humoredly.
"Oh." I looked down at the ground and blushed lightly.
The first time they made love. That was what he was going to say. We kept the
conversation light and out of our families up until
we got to the theater. We got in line to buy our tickets and stared at all the
posters of present movies and soon to come features.
Once we got our tickets, we went inside and got some popcorn and drinks before
going into the theater and finding our seats.
As we sat down, Cary motioned to a couple in front of us that were locked in a
passionate embrace and kissing rather intensely.
"Alan and I used to do this all the time." He whispered, taking a few pieces of
popcorn out of his bag.
"Cary--" I whispered harshly, but he silenced me by holding up a finger.
"No, no, no, it's really cool. Just watch." He looked at me before tossing the
popcorn onto the couple. The popcorn stuck to
the girl's hair, but neither of them seemed to notice.
I looked away, trying my hardest to think of him as childish and immature, but
what he did WAS pretty funny. In a strange way.
We each took turns flinging popcorn at the couple who--amazingly--were oblivious
to everything around them. It was hilarious,
they looked like Christmas trees with chains of popcorn and kernels hanging from
them. Okay, so it was mean, but... Just then,
the lights dimmed and the previews started. We saw a lot of trailors,
particularly for A Walk to Remember, The Mothman Prophecies,
and Crossroads, the movie that Britney Spears was in. As the trailor for
Crossroads played, a look of growing disgust appeared
on Cary's face and afterwards he complained to me, "God, I HATE her."
There was loud laughter from all around us and Cary realized that people had
heard what he said--and most of them agreed
with his opinion. I hid a smile as Cary stood and took a bow then sat down,
trying to appear cool.
"Are movies with you always this eventful?" I asked, taking a sip from my large
7UP.
"You should have seen me when Sam and I went to watch America's Sweethearts." He
said. "My cousin, Samantha had asked
Sam out when she came to visit. Sam had no idea how to turn her down--the nice
guy that he is--" I snorted loudly "--so he begged
me to come along with them and sit in the back to keep them from getting
too...um, friendly."
"I'll bet you had no trouble with that." I commented.
As the movie started, the couple broke apart and realized that they had popcorn
all over them. Cary and I shared a glance
before stifling our laughter. How was the movie? Well, brilliant, is only one
way to describe it. Mel Gibson is one of my very
favorite actors, I love all of his movies and this was no exception. I never cry
during movies, that just isn't my style, but at the end
of this one (and during several parts throughout) I was weeping, my face wet
with tears. Cary looked over me as I sobbed into
my popcorn bag, he had tears in his eyes as well, but was determined not to show
it. Just to show how 'macho' he was he
grunted and stood up to stretch. "Well, that just SUCKED." At that, all the
women around us sobbed uncontrollably, one lady
even hit him with her handbag as she passed by. "Insensitive jerk." she mumbled.
Cary's eyes were wide and he stared at me. "See the trouble you've caused?"
Shaking my head I stood up. "Come on, let's go."
Cary nodded and we left to get our bikes out of the bike rack.
"What did you REALLY think about the movie?" I asked.
"Honestly? It was awesome." Cary said, as we rode off. "Do you want to get
something to eat? Myself, I'm starved."
"Sure." I said. I could go for something to eat.
"Why don't we go to the new Chinese restaurant by the mall?" Cary suggested and
I agreed.
Hey, the movie turned out okay, the restaurant couldn't be much worse.
"So, that's how the Baby-sitters' Club was formed." I said as we rode home.
"Wow..." Cary said. "I just... wow."
"Of course things were much more simpler before you came along." I said
teasingly. "You and your Mischeif Knights gave us
more than our share of troubles."
"Well, we try." Cary said, grinning. "But I haven't been all trials and
tribulations for you, have I Kristin? I mean, there was that
time that I did that autobiography on you."
"Yeah."
"And the time that I helped Mary Anne get revenge on Cokie."
"You weren't the only one." I challenged.
"And the time I opened Alan Gray's locker for Claudia when she left that note in
there." Cary said, ticking off the list with his
fingers. "What happened there, anyway?"
I looked at him and explained how Claudia had a huge crush on Jeremy Rudolph
(who was dating Stacey at the time) and
decided to tell him how she felt. She couldn't do it face to face, so she
decided to write a note. But instead of slipping it into
Jeremy's locker, she put it into Alan Gray's The Scum of the Eight Grade.
"Claudia looked like she swallowed a fly." I said, laughing at the memory. "She
even wanted me to get some dynamite to see if
I could open it. Then I told her that you could probably open it."
Cary stared at me, opened mouthed at my long-winded description. Then he put on
a Cuban accent, "Gee, Lucy, do you think
we can pull it off?"
I laughed at his impression of Desi Arnez.
"That's a goo' one." I said.
We stopped in front of my house and Cary followed me up to the front porch.
"Well, this was... interesting." I said as he leaned against the railing.
"Interesting?" Cary repeated. "Interesting as in, appealing, lively...fun?"
"Yes, fun." I agreed, smiling. "It was fun, Cary. It was... actually better than
I expected."
"Really?" He asked.
"Yeah, really." I sighed. "At least I didn't have to wear a dress."
Cary laughed, really roared and I allowed him the satisfaction of a small
chuckle.
"You know, Kristy, you really do look better in a dress." He said.
"You should take a picture, it'll last longer." I said.
"No, seriously." He insisted, stepping up to me. "You look really, pretty... I
mean, all dolled up and not as crappy as you are
when you're in gym class."
"Oh, I bet you say that to ALL the girls." I said with a dramatic flair.
"No, just to you." He said, he stared me for a long moment before reaching
behind me and undoing my ponytail.
"What--hey!" I protested, but he silenced me by putting his index on my lips.
He looked around and picked a pink fuschia off of the vine growing around the
porch. Brushing my hair away from my eyes,
he tucked the flower neatly behind my ear and rested his hands behind my neck.
"There, see? Just as I thought." He said, justifying his case. "You do look..."
He trailed off and I felt my heart flutter wildly again, those damn butterflies
in my stomach banging against my insides. I could
barely swallow as Cary struggled unsuccessfully to finish his sentence and his
lips drew closer and closer to mine. I closed my
eyes and felt the friction shock of electricity as our lips touched for the very
first time. Without thinking, I broke away, shocked,
as if it had never happened.
His thumb traced over my cheek and I felt my legs turn to jell-o. I clutched
onto his back and pulled him closer to kiss me
again. This time it was more natural feeling and warm, my mind was having
trouble functioning. I was kissing Cary Retlin. And
I was liking it. Cary's tongue slipped into my mouth and my eyes shot open as
our tongues touched, it felt weird, but a good
weird. After ten seconds, Cary pulled away, as breathless and amazed as me.
"Wow..." He whispered, his arms still around me. "Kristy, I..."
I looked up at him and waited, my mind blurry and confused.
"Kristy, I have to be honest with you." Cary said, his voice raspy. "I've
thought about that moment way longer than just a minute
before we arrived."
My heart caught in my throat as it gave a leap. Cary had thought about this
before, he'd been having these feelings for a while.
"For how long?" I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Ever since...we did that project for Mrs. Simon's class." He said. "...Maybe
even before that."
"Before..." I recurred and without a moment's pause, I kissed him again. Cary
offered no resistance as he cupped my cheek in
his hand and pressed his chest against me. I could feel his heart beating almost
as rapidly as mine and I'm sure he could feel mine
as well. My mind got so fuzzy and distorted that I lost my balance and had to
grab onto Cary and the two of us fell back against
the wall. I had to pull away or else I wouldn't be able to stop and if that
happened then someone (namely Sam or Charlie) would
see us.
"Cary," I murmured as I gently pushed him away. He didn't allow me to separate
us by more than a few inches.
"Kristy." He said in a voice that belonged on a much older guy, it was deep,
mature. "We have to do this again someday."
"Definitely." I replied, not feeling any need to say more.