Tilt - Alan Cumyn [40]
Lock.
Her lips were terribly smooth and cold at first, then wondrously warm. If he kept his eyes open the rain crept in, so he closed them and held her even tighter. She was very strong. She had an enormous grip on . . . on all of him. But she didn’t move her head or lips around. She had . . . smooth teeth. He could taste the sweet juice.
She was kissing him.
And it wasn’t making a lot of sense.
Her tongue was . . . and his was . . . and everything was . . .
A car honked then, God! It swerved hard and could have hit them. Stan pulled Janine over to the sidewalk. Where they should have been all the time.
KISSING TEENS BREATHE THEIR LAST!
They stood apart now. Stan had no idea what his face looked like, but Janine’s was . . . astonished. Her mouth was hanging open.
And then she was running, running back to the dance. She was fast, too. It was surprising how strong her stride was.
She could run track. She could run track in a black dress and cowboy boots.
I should go after her, Stan thought.
Because that kiss meant something.
It wasn’t what she’d expected.
His very first kiss. Maybe hers, too. With a boy.
She was a block away already when he started after her. She was fast but he was faster.
Or he should have been. If he wasn’t so cold. And wet. His pants — her pants on him — were soaked and grabbed at his legs. He was a better runner than this, but she was pulling away.
She hadn’t said anything about being a track star.
She made it to the door of the rec center far ahead of him, and that changed things somehow. She was running away — away from him — so he had no right to follow. She was back safe with her family . . . with her girlfriend, Leona.
She kissed him, then chose her.
And Stan did know where he was. May Creek Boulevard was just over there. It would be a long walk but he’d make it home. May Creek to Eddington and then he’d hit the river and it would be only a couple more miles from there.
He’d been Janine Igwash’s boyfriend for about fifteen minutes. That had to be some kind of record.
17
When Stan staggered down the stairs the next day at three o’clock in the afternoon, wiping the sleep from his eyes, the house was empty except for his father taking apart the toilet.
“What are you doing?” Stan asked.
His father was on his knees surrounded by greasy tools, and the toilet lay on its side like an upended ship. A dark hole ringed by yellowy black wax stared up from the bathroom floor. The sewer reek was far worse than the leftover Chanel disaster upstairs.
“I’m trying to save your mother a substantial amount of money,” Ron said. “You know how much water these relics use in a year?”
Stan didn’t know. His father’s hands were covered in the yellowy black wax, a dab of which dangled from his cheek as well.
“You disappeared last night,” Ron said. “Your mother’s going to kill you when she gets back.” Ron explained that they had all gone to the art gallery: Stan’s mother, Lily, Feldon and Gary.
“Isn’t Feldon sick?” Stan asked.
“Miraculous recovery. Must be something in the air around here.”
Could he not smell anything?
Stan couldn’t figure out what Ron was doing with the toilet. He just seemed to be wiping grease on himself, a rag, the tools, the rag again . . .
“So it’s . . . pretty serious with this guy, I guess,” Ron said. “Gary.”
What was his father fishing for?
“They’ve been together what — a couple of months?” Ron’s eyes didn’t stay on a person. They darted here and there. And why did he just keep wiping himself?
“Longer than a couple of months,” Stan said.
“I bet he doesn’t play hockey,” Ron pressed. “Guy looks like he’d fall flat on his ass if you put him in a pair of skates.”
Stan and his father did play hockey together. Stan remembered the cold on his face in the morning at the outdoor rink, the slap of the puck against the boards, how hot they would get in just a few minutes of hard skating.
“Gary is . . . surprising in a lot of ways,” Stan said.
“I wish