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Shirley for just the right amount of time after the last bell rang, so I could have some V-time. I eluded Leon too. I wasn’t proud of that either, most definitely, but I couldn’t be with him and Ms. Lincoln at the same time. Vanessa had actually asked me to come and talk to her that day.
    While we chatted, I looked around to make sure Shirley was nowhere in sight. Vanessa talked about my trip to France. She was touching me too, doing that thing that girls do when they like you—“accidentally” putting one of their soft hands on your arm. We exchanged (get this!) our home and email addresses and our cell numbers. I couldn’t believe it! She asked me to write to her when I was in France, and gave me her details on a little sheet of pink paper, in that looping, flowery handwriting all girls have. And then she drew a happy face at the bottom (like I’ve heard she always does when she signs something) and a heart! Then she kissed me.
    Well, it wasn’t like a kiss kiss on the lips. It wasn’t remotely like the kind I was looking forward to getting from Miss Sandoval the night before I left, but it was a genuine kiss, right on the cheek and pretty close to the lips. She did it real fast and unexpectedly, and I almost fell over.
    â€œWrite to me, Adam, write to me lots. I want to know everything ! And when you come home, when you’ve done all those tasks, we should…maybe… start seeing more of each other.”
    Shirley came around the corner at that moment. She had Leon with her. I don’t think she saw the kiss, and there wasn’t any evidence of it on my cheek since the Big V wasn’t wearing lipstick that day. She goes for a “natural look.” I’ve heard other girls say that about her in kind of bitter voices. It means she looks like she’s got no makeup on when, I guess, she really does. But she sure smelled good up close, kept her eyes open, looking at me when she kissed me, and left a little bit of something on my cheek, something see-through and a bit sticky. I think girls call it gloss…lip gloss? I rubbed it off and jammed the piece of pink paper into my pocket before Shirley reached me.

    We were kind of quiet on our walk home that day. She took my hand but didn’t squeeze it like she often does. I kept worrying about what she’d seen. We live in a pretty nice part of Buffalo called Delaware Park, not far from our school. It has museums and parks and is full of beautiful houses. Most people think my city is a bit of an armpit, but that’s just because it’s cold and snowy in the winter (and that’s only because it’s so close to Canada). Our area has lots of trees and boulevards and trendy restaurants. Mom and Dad say they wouldn’t live anywhere else. She can make some big sales here and he can get from our “leafy street” to the airport in fifteen minutes.
    But the neighborhood didn’t feel comforting to me as we walked along the street that day. There was a bit of a frost coming from my girlfriend, and it was hard to blame her. Even though she didn’t see the kiss (at least, I don’t think she did), she somehow, without saying a single word (strange how girls can do that), made it crystal clear that she was bummed out about my spending some of my last minutes at school with the best-looking girl in the place. Her hand was limp in mine. I didn’t know how to respond. Guys never do. It seems like girls spend all their time, from the moment they are young and playing with Barbie dolls, figuring out relationships, learning how to react to certain situations. Guys don’t do anything like that. We don’t have any practice whatsoever. So when there is a romantic crisis, when the shit hits the fan, we don’t have a clue. We are always just running on autopilot.
    But I still think I did a pretty good job of making things up to her over the next few days. I bought her a teddy bear.