Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology Read online

  The first chords start and I settle back into my seat. Rick doesn’t let go of my hand. His thumb rubs circles on the backs of my fingers and I lean into him as I lose myself in the music.

  “So, what does she play?” I ask at intermission.

  “What’s the one that’s bigger than a violin, but still goes under your chin?” he asks, tweaking my chin.

  “A viola, I think.”

  “That’s it! She plays the viola. She wants us to come down after.”

  My eyes widen and turn toward the blur of the stage below. “Down . . . there?”

  He wraps his arm around my shoulders and jiggles my stiff body. “We don’t have to, but she’d love to meet the girl who finally got me here.”

  I’m shaking again as the house lights dim. Rick pulls me close and rests his cheek against the top of my head. The chattering around us stops and I work to slow my breathing, afraid everyone can hear it.

  But the crash of cymbals breaking the silence sends me flying out of my seat with a scream.

  “Hey?” Rick says, his voice soft and his arms instantly around me.

  Explosions. Screams. I’m suffocating.

  He pulls me to his side and ushers me up to the elevator, the whole time murmuring, “I’m so sorry,” over and over.

  I don’t even know how we get to the car, but once we’re shut in, we just sit. I wipe the sweat from my face with the sleeve of my sweater, and try to quiet the rasp of my breathing.

  Finally, he takes my hand.

  I tip my head against the headrest. “There goes our second date, down the tubes. Third time’s the charm?”

  “Technically, that was our third date. Cold Stone was two, and that went okay, so we’re batting three-thirty-three.”

  I blow out a weak laugh and roll my head to look at him, but I can’t really make much out in the dark. “I’m a fucking mess. Why are you even bothering with me?”

  There’s a long pause where all I hear is the traffic outside the car and him breathing. “Listen, V. Before the accident—”

  “It wasn’t an accident.” It comes out sharper than I mean it to.

  “Sorry. I get that. But before everything, when we were Skyping . . .” He trails off and I wait. “I really liked you. A lot. You were a total smart-ass, and strong, and sexy, and so fucking beautiful that I couldn’t stop thinking about you. When you stopped Skyping, the first thing I thought was that you’d hooked up with someone over there and it made me want to do things to him. It wasn’t until I couldn’t even get ahold of you on e-mail that I began to think it was worse than that. I got desperate and texted Lexie, who texted Katie, and all I got back from Katie was a ‘Stay the hell away from my little sister,’ which I took as a good sign. At least it meant you were alive. The day you finally returned my e-mail . . . there aren’t even words for how relieved I felt.”

  My heart is pounding. I lift my hand and his breath stalls as my fingertips find the short scruff over his jawline. It’s softer than I thought it would be. I trail along his jaw to his tiny earlobe, then over his high cheekbone to his eyebrow, trying to memorize him by touch. I fight to remember all the little details of his face—how his right eyebrow arches a little higher than his left; the small, dark mole at the left corner of his mouth; the flare at the end of his narrow nose; how clear his blue eyes are, like there’s nothing they can’t see.

  What if I forget how beautiful he is?

  “Here,” he says, taking my hand gently and guiding it to a spot on his forehead. Above his left eye, there’s a small raised scar. I touch it, and then, before I’ve thought about why, I pull him closer and kiss it.

  A tiny groan escapes him, and I wish I could see his face to know what it means.

  “Can I?” he asks, a breathy whisper, and then I know. He’s turned on. And that makes me braver.

  I see the shadow of his hand near my face and I fight to keep from flinching away. I want to tell him no. But I also want to feel his touch. “Yeah.”

  His fingers brush like butterfly wings over the smooth skin of my left cheek and send a shiver through me.

  “Okay?” he asks.

  Each of my breaths is a jagged burst. “Okay,” rattles out on one of them.

  He thumbs my chin, and finds a small scar there before trailing oh-so-softly over my lower lip. He stalls there, on the scar that cuts through the corner of my mouth, and I hear the change in his breathing. His palm cups my chin and he leans closer. God, I want this. Instead of following my instinct and pulling back, I tip my face up.

  When his lips touch mine, I stop breathing altogether. His fingertips find my scarred cheek, and the chaos of emotions inside me collides with the tumult of overpowering sensations from his touch and his kiss, leaving me reeling.

  He draws slowly away. “Okay?”

  “Okay” escapes on a shaky breath.

  He explores my face with his fingertips. He’s still so close I can feel his breath on my cheek, and I drink in the smell of warm sheets and soap. Him.

  “Okay?” he asks again, his fingers sifting through where the scar disappears into my short hair.

  “Okay.” It’s more confident now, because, through my tremble, I feel his.

  His lips trail over my scar, from my hairline to the corner of my mouth. I close the inch between us and kiss him again. His hand scoops around to the nape of my neck and draws me into him as he seals his mouth over mine. His tongue flicks at my lips and I open, letting him in.

  Because I trust him.

  And I think I might even love him.

  WE PULL UP in front of my house, but neither of us moves to get out of the car. He lets go of the gearshift and takes my hand. I feel him lean closer, and I meet him halfway. His kiss is gentle, but insistent, and I can feel the hunger in it. I could kiss him forever.

  He draws away and looks down at me. “You okay?”

  At his question, I start shaking again. I’ll never be okay. “How much do you want to know?”

  I feel him stiffen at my side. “Anything you want to tell me.” His fingers weave into mine. “Everything.”

  I tip my head back and stare into the darkness. I never let myself think about what happened that day, but as Rick lifts my hand and kisses the back of each finger in turn, I feel the gates opening. I don’t want anything between us, and it feels like this is the last thing. If I tell him this, he’ll know the whole me.

  “We were caravanning medical supplies into base and there was a car broken down in the road. We started to weave around it, but it exploded just as Chris’s Humvee was passing. I was in the one behind him, and shrapnel cut through our windows.” I shrug as a tear trickles out of the corner of my eye, pooling in my ear. “That’s all I really remember, which sucks, because it makes the whole thing sound so insignificant. I hate that. I want it to sound as huge as it feels.”

  “It’s huge,” he says, a quaver in his voice. He thumbs away my tear and kisses my scarred cheek.

  I lift my head and kiss him hard, needing to feel this. Needing to know I’m alive. He kisses me back just as hard. Just as desperate.

  When he walks me to my door, my lips are swollen. He gives me one last kiss as the door opens.

  He pulls away, but doesn’t let me go. “Hello, Mrs. Vargas.”

  “How was the concert?” I hear both hope and trepidation in Mom’s voice.

  “It was great,” I tell her, hoping she’ll take the hint and give me a few more minutes with Rick.

  She doesn’t.

  “You need to say good night, Rene. You have an early appointment at the ophthalmologist tomorrow.” She just can’t let go.

  “Just give me a minute, okay?”

  There’s a pause. “One minute.” The door closes, but doesn’t latch.

  I step back into Rick. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  His smile glows in the porch light. “And the day after, and the day after.”

  I smile back. “Good.”

  He kisses me again and I try to reme
mber if anyone else’s kiss has ever reached quite so deep. “ ’Night,” he says when his lips leave mine.

  “Call me when you get to your parents’?”

  He leans close and I feel his cheek smile against mine. “Phone sex?” he asks low in my ear.

  Sparklers ignite in my belly. “Maybe,” I say in my most sultry voice, but then I can’t stop the embarrassed giggle.

  He gives me one last peck on the lips, then backs down the walk. “Give me ten.”

  “Nine,” I counter.

  He turns and jogs to his car. “Eight!” he calls as his car door slams.

  Five

  IN THE THREE weeks since Rick was home for spring break, my shrink says I’ve made “great gains.” I can’t really explain it, but opening up to Rick started something. It’s like that cliché about getting something off your chest, except this feels like something I needed to get out of my chest. There’s finally room in there for air. I can breathe again.

  Rick’s come home every weekend since break. He somehow talked me into dinner with his family tonight. When he suggested I debut my new eye for his parents, I guess I was feeling overconfident. On the phone it didn’t sound so crazy, but now, in real life, I have every last dress I own strewn all over my room in my semi-panic. I finally decide on a simple blue one that I can throw a shrug over to cover the deep scars on my right shoulder and chest. I head to the bathroom and scrounge under the sink for my old makeup bag, but I’ve no sooner got foundation on before I decide it looks stupid, even though I can’t really see it. There’s no point in trying to hide something that can’t be hidden. I’m washing it off when the doorbell rings.

  When I turn off the water and blot my face dry, I hear Mom in the family room, giving Rick the third degree.

  “. . . still recovering from her procedure,” she’s saying, “so she shouldn’t be out too late.”

  “I’ll have her home by ten,” Rick tells her in that voice that could tame the wildest shrew. It tamed me, after all.

  I push through the bathroom door. “Stop trying to scare my date away, Mom!” I yell down the hall on my way to my room for my shoulder bag. When I come out a few minutes later, I see Rick in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He turns and whistles through his teeth. “Wow, V.”

  But then Mom pushes past him and stands between us. “I was just telling Rick you need to be home at a reasonable hour.”

  “Because there’s a real danger of me pulling an all-nighter,” I mutter, annoyed.

  “Tone, young lady,” Dad grumbles, emerging from the garage door.

  “Hi, Mr. Vargas,” Rick says. He lays a hand on my back, guiding me to the front door. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  The door closes behind us and I glare at him. “You too?”

  He stops walking. “Me too, what?”

  “You think I need to be taken care of?”

  His head shakes. “Not particularly, but your mother obviously does. If she thinks I’m doing that, she’s more likely to let you hang out alone with me.” He reaches for my hand and folds it into his, leaning close. “And I really want her to let you hang out alone with me.”

  We drive for a few minutes in silence before I get up the nerve to ask something I’ve wanted to know for a while. It feels more important now that our relationship is becoming more physical. “Katie says you cheated on Lexie. That’s why you two broke up.”

  There’s a long pause. “I did some stupid things.”

  “How many stupid things did you do?”

  “A lot.” I hear what sounds like his thumb drumming the steering wheel. “It was first semester freshman year. I got to college and it was, like, this girl smorgasbord. There were campus parties, and beer, and girls were everywhere. I’d never been in a situation where they would throw themselves at me and there was nothing stopping us from following through, so . . .”

  “So you slept with them.”

  It’s not a question, but he blows out a weary sigh. “Yeah.”

  “I’ve seen you, Rick. I’m sure they’re still throwing themselves at you.”

  “I’ve learned a few things in three years,” he says.

  “Such as?”

  A long pause. “Such as . . . it’s not working for me anymore. I want more than just sex. I want it to mean something.”

  That hangs in the air between us for rest of the drive, keeping me from dwelling on the fact that I’m about to meet his parents. But when he walks me through the door, I’m shaking.

  “Finally,” a voice says from off to our left. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  I glance that way as a slender guy Rick’s height stands from the couch. The annoying music to some video game shuts off and he crosses in front of us to the other side of the room.

  “That was my little brother, Andy,” Rick says taking my hand and following in the direction his brother went. “Ignore him. He’s an ass.”

  We turn a corner into a brightly lit kitchen and it takes my eye a second to adjust. There’s a woman in a blue top bustling around behind a large island in the center of the room, blond hair piled on top of her head.

  “Rick, honey!” she says as she moves toward us. “This must be Rene.”

  I fight not to drop my head as I reach for her outstretched hand. “Hi, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  I see a flash of white in her face and know she’s smiling. What I can’t tell is how forced or fake it is. Is she staring at my scar?

  “Call me Tammy,” she says, pumping my hand vigorously. “It’s so wonderful to finally meet you! I’ve told Rick a hundred times to bring you home, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer this time.” I try to let go of her hand, but she holds tight, even when she says to Rick, “Your dad just got home from his golf game. He’ll be out as soon as he’s changed.”

  Finally she lets go of my hand and Rick takes it.

  “Something smells really good,” I say as he pulls me toward the island.

  “We’re doing pizza,” Tammy says. “I’ve got the dough ready, but the rest is up to you.”

  My mom would spoon-feed me if I let her, but Rick’s mom is going to make me make my own dinner. I immediately like her.

  She moves to the fridge. “You can stretch your dough onto a pizza stone, and the sauce and toppings are all in these bowls or over on the cutting boards.”

  “Don’t mess with mine,” Andy says from the table. “It’s in the top oven.”

  “I’ve never made a pizza before,” I mutter to Rick.

  “It’s a meal in progress,” Tammy says, then snorts at her own joke, and I can’t help but crack a smile, even though I don’t get it.

  I wash my hands and Rick drops a ball of dough on my pizza stone. “The stones are twelve inches, so just stretch this into a circle.”

  “Do I get to toss it?” I ask.

  “Only if you think you can catch it,” he says with a smile in his voice.

  “Serve my dinner, wench!” booms from the hallway, making me jump.

  “You’re on your own unless you want portabella mushrooms, and feta on your pizza,” Tammy answers.

  Someone bulkier than Rick steps up next to him and claps him on the back. He’s close enough that I see he has a dark beard to go with short dark hair.

  “Dad, this is Rene Vargas,” Rick tells him. “Rene, this is my dad, Craig.”

  “So, Rene,” Craig says, “It appears I’m in need of a table wench. Are you, by chance, available for the evening?”

  “Um—”

  Rick shoves him. “Make your own goddamn pizza, old man.”

  “You just want the wench for yourself,” Craig says with a grin.

  “Damn straight,” Rick answers, pulling me closer.

  We all go to work. Once we have our dough stretched onto the stones and the sauce spread, we sprinkle on shredded cheese, then Rick steps around behind me and points out all toppings. We layer them on and slide the stones into the oven.

&nbs
p; When we sit down to eat twenty minutes later, I have no idea what my pizza looks like, but it tastes amazing.

  Rick’s family is so easy. I know they can tell I don’t see very well, but when I accidentally drop my salad fork on the floor, Tammy just tells me where to find a new one. No one here seems to think I need to be babied.

  Rick’s brother takes off right after dinner, and his parents are busy cleaning the kitchen. Rick pulls me into his lap and kisses me as we settle onto the sofa.

  “Mmm . . .” he says with a grin. “You taste like pepperoni. I approve.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  There’s a clap from the kitchen and I jump and slide off Rick just as Craig comes around the corner. “There’s got to be a ballgame on this thing,” he says, scooping something off the coffee table. The next second, the TV is on and he’s flipping through channels. He stops on a Giants game and I settle into Rick’s side as he pulls me closer.

  And I realize this is the first time since I’ve been home that I feel like myself.

  Six

  I PUT ON the Coke bottle glasses the optometrist gave me last week and look at the picture on my Mac screen for a long time. I didn’t smile when I clicked the close up of my face. I center the picture on my left eye and slowly tighten the magnification. There’s a black pupil in the middle of a light brown iris. I scan to my right eye, and with my limited vision, it looks pretty much the same. God, I hope it looks the same.

  I have to zoom in even more before I can make out the scar cutting through my right eyebrow. Though I generally avoid looking in the mirror, on the occasions I’ve glanced up at myself, I’ve noticed that the scar isn’t the first thing I see anymore. Looking at the picture, it’s clear that it’s starting to fade—more pink now than red.

  I reach for my face and finger along the scar from forehead to lips. It’s starting to feel smoother, blending into the skin around it. The doctor said it would do this—fade over time. I didn’t believe him.

  Rick wants me to come to San Jose today for his birthday, and he graduates next week, which means another trip. We’ve gone out a few times on the weekends when he’s come home, but it’s always been to places where there weren’t very many people and I knew none of them.