Kissing in America by Margo Rabb Read Free Book Online Page A

delicious things to eat, and standing over the stove with the recipes my dad had torn out of magazines. I even liked placing the Fresh Direct order, ordering bagels and whitefish salad.
    â€œThe ceremony starts at five o’clock,” I said.
    She looked up from her newspaper and pressed her lips together. “I have a conference at Brooklyn College that day. I’m giving a keynote at five and I have events till late at night.”
    I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.” But I felt this emptiness just the same.
    She seemed angry—not at me—but she stared out the window at some uncertain point in the distance and seemed almost teary for a second. “Sometimes I get so frustrated that I can’t be in two places at once,” she said. “Can you bring back extra copies of the book for me?”
    â€œI’ll get extra copies if you promise to read it.”
    â€œOf course I’ll read it.”
    I didn’t believe her. She’d glance at the poem, her face as blank as when she read her students’ papers.
    She put her hand over mine. “I’m sorry I can’t be there.” She paused. “I hope the ceremony won’t go too late. I don’t want you taking the subway from the Bronx after eight.”
    â€œI’ll be fine. It won’t go late.”
    Ever since my dad died, my mom had been worried that something bad would happen to me. A year ago she signed me up for a Self-Defense for Women class where each week I repeated the phrase “I want I need I deserve” and practiced sticking my fingers into a dummy’s jugular notch. She worried about muggings, crazy people on the street, kidnappers, and every crime that she read about in the paper.
    Even now, the thought of me riding the subway at night set something off in her, and she passed her newspaper to me. “Read this.” She pointed to an article about pedestrian deaths. Kids who had been killed while crossing Manhattan streets.
    â€œThese people crossed with the light but the drivers turning didn’t see them. When you cross, you have to make eye contact with the drivers. Make sure they see you,” she said.
    I rolled my eyes. “I’m always careful.” I stood up and put my dishes in the sink. I glanced at the clock. “I’m meeting Annie to go study. I promise I’ll make eye contact with drivers when I cross the street.”
    â€œI’m not joking,” my mom said.
    â€œYou be careful too, then,” I said. “You’re spacier than me.” My mom was always doing her work on the subway and missing her stop.
    â€œI will,” she said.
    As I walked to Athens Diner to meet Annie, I thought about how my dad used to say that when he looked at me, he felt like he’d re-created himself in girl form. “You’re both gooey lovecrumbs,” my mom had agreed. Now I wished she was a little bit of a gooey lovecrumb. A smidge of a lovecrumb. She used to be, before he died. When I was younger, we’d go to the park, and from the swings I’d watch my parents kiss. On weekend mornings, I climbed into bed between them, and the three of us read books together. We stopped doing that after he died.
    It was like my dad was the glue between my mom and me, and the glue had been washed off.
    Annie waited in a booth. We ordered hot chocolates with extra marshmallows and I told her about the poem.
    She squealed and hugged me. “Did you tell Will?”
    â€œNot yet. He hasn’t been in school the last couple of days, and there’s no point in texting him—his phone doesn’t work half the time.” I’d never even told Annie or Will that I’d written it and submitted it—I wanted to spare myself the humiliation if it didn’t get picked.
    She propped her head on her chin. “I heard a rumor this morning about why he was absent. Jill in my lab group is inAP English with him, and she told me he was