Jessica Martinez - The Vow

We sit in silence for a minute before she asks, “So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Yeah. He punched me.”

“I got that part. Anything else?”

“He feels bad.”

“You don’t say. He’s been trying to get me to go out with him for five years. I didn’t realize you hadn’t told him yet.”

“I was going to email him, but I thought it’d be better in person, and I thought he wasn’t coming back until next week.”

“So what, he found out on Facebook?”

I shrug. I hadn’t thought of it, but there hadn’t been much post-punch thinking time. Facebook was a likely source.

I think of his face hovering over me. His eyes. It wasn’t just rage. Even with the swirling, I could see confusion. “Maybe we could tell him the truth.”

Annie’s grip tightens on the back of my neck and she takes the ice away. “What?”

“At least then he’ll understand and he won’t have to hate us.”

“What are you talking about? I lied to everybody. My family isn’t even speaking to me! You can’t decide to tell people because you don’t like getting punched!”

“That has nothing to do with it. Although, wow. Getting punched. Who knew?”

“I’m not kidding around, Mo!”

“Neither am I. You know he’s always had a thing for you. Now he thinks I stood by and watched him make an idiot of himself and that something’s been going on with us for years.”

“So. The hell. What?” There’s more than a hint of panic in her voice. “And what about what Sam said? If we get caught, you’d get deported and I’d go to jail!”

“She said jail time pretty much never happens. You’d get a fine, but it’s not like Bryce would tell anyone.”

“Bryce is never going to know!” At some point during the conversation she got up into my face, and now she’s so close I can see the hair inside her nostrils. It’s weird. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before.

“You’re scaring me,” I say.

“Good.” She sits back on her heels and shakes her head at me. “Because I will do something so evil to you in your sleep if you tell Bryce or anyone. You can’t even imagine it.”

“I was just assaulted by a primate with a fist the size of a cantaloupe.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re saying I’m not as scary as Bryce’s fist?”

“I’m saying I’ve never been more terrified of anything in my whole life than of you at this moment. How’d the job interview go?”

She brings the ice back to my jaw. “Welcome to Myrna’s Country Craft, how can I help you?”

I grin and pain shoots into my cranium. “Congrats. You know what this means?”

“Employee discount.”

“It means I have a sugar momma. Hey, and you’re older than me too. How’s it feel being a cougar?”

“Not bad. How does it feel being a punching bag?”

“Not good.”

“Hey, if I’m your sugar momma, I get to revise the job chart. Here, hold this.” She takes my hand and puts it over the ice.

I don’t argue as she reassigns chores. I’m too sore, too grateful. At first, anyway. “Wait, I have to do the toilet and the dishes? Seems like it should be one or the other.”

“When’s the last time you did any cooking?”

“Good point.”

She turns on the TV. “How about you just watch basketball and agree to do whatever I tell you to do.”

“You’re mean. But okay. Wait, can the new order begin tomorrow, once I can feel my face again?”

“Fine.”

I spend the rest of the day acting like a baby and Annie spends the rest of the day treating me like one. It’s kind of awesome.

* * *

In a lot of ways, living with Annie is like living with Sarina. A girl is a girl. There are boxes of feminine hygiene products under my sink that I absolutely will not touch or even stare directly at, just in case I accidentally internalize information that makes me want to vomit and/or kill myself. And there are ridiculously long showers, but I can handle it. Besides, the bathroom smells like berries and vanilla after she leaves wrapped in about five towels, so what do I care? And there’s a row of bath products in the shower for practically every body part. Seems excessive. But apparently she needs a different bottle of soap or gel or foam or whatever for heels, forehead, and stomach.

Annie’s stomach. It’s kind of an interesting idea.

It’s not like I’ve never pictured her naked before—just nothing more than your typical I wonder what she actually looks like without her clothes curiosity. Except living in the same house, waiting for my turn in the shower with her all of ten feet away, naked and dripping wet, I find my mind wandering around a little more. That’s probably not abnormal though, what with the proximity thing messing with my brain. I don’t think it is.

I need school to start up again so I can go back to imaginatively admiring Maya. That’s an idea I can wrap my mind around. If I was at basketball camp right now, I’d at least have something real to focus on. Summer, however, is another six weeks of SAT prep (Study like it’s your full-time job, according to Dad), so I will continue trying to avoid making up analogies like Maya is to grapefruits, what Annie is to: a. mandarin oranges b. lemons c. key limes d. NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS, MO.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Huh?” My head jerks up. Annie’s digging through the key jar.

“What are you thinking about? You look like your brain is hurting.”

I point to the Kaplan text, which isn’t even open.

“That makes sense then. I’m going to work, and I’m stopping by the grocery store on the way home. Any requests?”

“No.” I stretch my arms above my head. Unless Kroger is selling sanity, I can’t be helped. “Wait, can you get more of those chicken nuggets in the shapes of dinosaurs?”

“Dino-Nuggets? You know they taste the same as the regular-shaped ones, right?”

“Supposedly.” Should I bother explaining? I used to tease Sarina about begging Mom to buy them, and now they remind me of her. Annie would understand, but I’m still too weirded out by my own weird thoughts and just want her to leave.

“Oh, and don’t forget we’re doing bridal portraits tonight,” she adds.

“What?”

She rolls her eyes. “We talked about this after Sam called the other day. That girl I told you about at work, Kristen, is bringing her dress for me to borrow. I told her my cousin is getting married and I want to show my mom the beading to see if she can do it, but I have to take it back to her tomorrow.”

“Holy elaborate lie,” I say.

“I know, but it’s not easy to steal someone’s wedding dress for a day when you’re already married.”

“And bridal portraits?” I know enough to know I shouldn’t admit to only vaguely recalling the conversation with the ever-demanding Sam about them. She brings out the “tune out” side of me. But I’m remembering now. We need pictures for our interview. That’s right. “Wait, why are we taking wedding pictures when our official story is we eloped?”

She sighs. “Not wedding pictures. Bridal portraits. It’s not like we’re hiring fake guests or anything. We’ll just go outside and use the timer to take a few shots. Sam said it would be smart to have something sentimental that makes us look like we’re actually happy to be married, you know, since we didn’t have a big wedding. Even elopers might do that. Elopers—is that a word?”

“Yeah. But the whole concept seems lame. Wedding glamour shots? Really? People do that?”

“Of course people do that. And Sam said good pictures go a long way in showing a couple is really in love.”

“And if Sam told us to jump off a bridge, would we be doing that too?”

“Yes. Now stop fighting it. We’re doing the pictures.”

“Fine. But I’m not taking my clothes off for the camera. Not ever again. I said no, and no means no, Annie, so stop pressuring me.”

She grins. For such a scrawny girl, she has nice full lips. They’re pink even first thing in the morning before she’s put makeup on. Probably soft too.

Annie shakes the keys in front of my eyes. “Earth to Mo.”

“Maybe I’m having a delayed-onset concussion.”

“The hit was almost two weeks ago. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s not medically possible.” She leans over and gently puts four fingertips on my lightly bruised face. I don’t know why she has to always go touching it. I can smell her deodorant. Linen fresh, according to the stick in the bathroom, but it smells more like flowers. I don’t even know what linen would smell like. “I think you must be a slow healer,” she says, still touching me. “But I like the yellow. It’s not as scary as the blue and purple and green were.”

“Glad my rainbow of pain is making you happy.”

She steps back. “No offense, but you should take a nap or something. Maybe go for a walk before the apartment fever sets in and you start talking to Duchess again.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’ve got to go,” she says, picking the keys back up. “Keep it real.”

Keep it real, keep it real, keep it real. My mind turns the words over on themselves, linking ends to beginnings, like Satan’s Cat chasing its tail. Keep it real, Mo, even though it’s NOT real, because we’re best friends and this whole thing blows up if you get confused with a real feeling. Because this is not real. But keep it real.

Thanks a lot, Annie.

Annie

That’s not real.”

I close my eyes. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s him. Instead, like an idiot, I just stand there clutching a box of frozen Dino-Nuggets, my entire body chilled and goose-pimpled from his deep voice and the freezer.