Nineteen Minutes Read online

  His words could melt her just as surely as his kiss or his touch; she already knew that by now. She hated that rubbery smell that permeated the air the moment he ripped open the Trojan packet and stayed on his hands until they were finished. And God, did anything feel better than having Matt inside her? Josie shifted just a little, felt her body adjust to him, and her legs trembled.

  When Josie had gotten her period at thirteen, her mother had not given her the typical heart-to-heart mother/daughter chat. Instead, she handed Josie a book on probability and statistics. "Every time you have sex, you can get pregnant or you can not get pregnant," her mother said. "That's fifty-fifty. So don't fool yourself into thinking that if you only do it once without protection, the odds are in your favor."

  Josie pushed at Matt. "I don't think we should do this," she whispered.

  "Have sex?"

  "Have sex without . . . you know. Anything."

  He was disappointed, Josie could tell by the way his face froze for just a moment. But he pulled out and fished for his wallet, found a condom. Josie took it out of his hand, tore open the package, helped him put it on. "One day," she began, and then he kissed her, and Josie forgot what she was going to say.

  *

  Lacy had started spreading corn on the lawn back in November to help the deer through the winter. There were plenty of locals who frowned upon artificially giving the deer a helping hand during the winter--mostly the same people whose gardens were wrecked by those surviving deer in the summer--but for Lacy, there was karma involved. As long as Lewis insisted on hunting, she was going to do what little she could to cancel out his actions.

  She put on her heavy boots--there was still enough snow on the ground to merit it, although it had gotten warm enough for the sap to start flowing, which meant that at least in theory, spring was coming. As soon as Lacy walked outside, she could smell the maple syrup refining in the neighbor's sugar house, like candy crystals in the air. She carried the bucket of feed corn to the swing set in the backyard--a wooden structure that the boys had played on when they were small, and that Lewis had never quite gotten around to dismantling.

  "Hey, Mom."

  Lacy turned to find Peter standing nearby, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a T-shirt and a down vest, and she imagined he had to be freezing. "Hi, sweetie," she said. "What's going on?"

  She could probably count on one hand the number of times Peter had come out of his room lately, much less outside. It was part of puberty, she knew, for adolescents to hole up in burrows and do whatever it was they did behind closed doors. In Peter's case, it involved the computer. He was online constantly--not for web surfing as much as programming, and how could she fault that kind of passion?

  "Nothing. What are you doing?"

  "Same thing I've done all winter."

  "Really?"

  She looked up at him. Against the beauty of the brisk outdoors, Peter seemed wildly out of place. His features were too delicate to match the craggy line of mountains in the backdrop behind him; his skin seemed nearly as white as the snow. He didn't fit, and Lacy realized that most of the time when she saw Peter somewhere, she could make the same observation.

  "Here," Lacy said, handing him the bucket. "Help."

  Peter took the bucket and began to toss handfuls of corn on the ground. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "Is it true that you were the one who asked out Dad?"

  Lacy grinned. "Well, if I hadn't, I would have probably had to wait around forever. Your father is many things, but perceptive isn't one of them."

  She had met Lewis at a pro-choice rally. Although Lacy would be the first to tell you that there was no greater gift than having a baby, she was a realist--she'd sent home enough mothers who were too young or too poor or too overburdened to know that the odds of that child having a good life were slim. She had gone with a friend to a march at the statehouse in Concord and stood on the steps with a sisterhood of women who held up signs: I'M PRO-CHOICE AND I VOTE...AGAINST ABORTION? DON'T HAVE ONE. She had looked around the crowd that day and realized that there was one lone man--well-dressed in a suit and tie, right in the thick of the protesters. Lacy had been fascinated by him--as a protester, he was completely cast against type. Wow, Lacy had said, working her way toward him. What a day.

  Tell me about it.

  Have you ever been here before? Lacy had asked.

  My first time, Lewis said.

  Mine, too.

  They had gotten separated as a new influx of marchers came up the stone steps. A paper had blown off the stack that Lewis was carrying, but by the time Lacy could grab it, he'd been swallowed by the crowd. It was the cover page to something bigger; she knew by the staple holes at the top, and it had a title that nearly put her to sleep: "The allocation of public education resources in New Hampshire: a critical analysis." But there was also an author's name: Lewis Houghton, Sterling College Dept. of Economics.

  When she called to tell Lewis that she had his paper, he said that he didn't need it. He could print out another copy. Yes, Lacy had said, but I have to bring this one back to you.

  Why?

  So you can explain it to me over dinner.

  It wasn't until they'd gone out for sushi that Lacy learned the reason Lewis had been at the statehouse had nothing to do with attending a pro-choice rally, but only because he had a scheduled appointment with the governor.

  "But how did you tell him?" Peter asked. "That you liked him, you know, like that?"

  "As I recall, I grabbed him after our third date and kissed him. Then again, that may have been to shut him up because he was going on and on about free trade." She glanced back over her shoulder, and suddenly the questions all made sense. "Peter," she said, a smile breaking over her. "Is there someone you like?"

  Peter didn't even have to answer--his face turned crimson.

  "Do I get to know her name?"

  "No," Peter said emphatically.

  "Well, it doesn't matter." She looped her arm through Peter's. "Gosh, I envy you. There's nothing that compares to those first few months when all you can think of is each other. I mean, love in any form is pretty fabulous . . . but falling in love . . . well."

  "It's not like that," Peter said. "I mean, it's kind of one-sided."

  "I bet she's just as nervous as you are."

  He grimaced. "Mom. She barely even registers my existence. I'm not . . . I don't hang out with the kind of people she hangs out with."

  Lacy looked at her son. "Well," she said. "Then your first order of business is to change that."

  "How?"

  "Find ways to connect with her. Maybe in places where you know her friends won't be around. And try to show her the side of you that she doesn't normally see."

  "Like what?"

  "The inside." Lacy tapped Peter's chest. "If you tell her how you feel, I think you might be surprised at the reaction."

  Peter ducked his head and kicked at a hummock of snow. Then he glanced up at her shyly. "Really?"

  Lacy nodded. "It worked for me."

  "Okay," Peter said. "Thanks."

  She watched him trudge back up the hill to the house, and then she turned her attention back to the deer. Lacy would have to feed them until the snow melted. Once you started taking care of them, you had to follow through, or they just wouldn't make it.

  *

  They were on the floor of the living room and they were nearly naked. Josie could taste beer on Matt's breath, but she must have tasted like that, too. They'd both drunk a few at Drew's--not enough to get wasted, just buzzed, enough so that Matt's hands seemed to be all over her at once, so that his skin set fire to hers.

  She'd been floating along pleasantly in a haze of the familiar. Yes, Matt had kissed her--one short one, then a longer, hungry kiss, as his hand worked open the clasp on her bra. She lay lazy, spread beneath him like a feast, as he pulled off her jeans. But then, instead of doing what usually came next, Matt reared over h