While he was doing laundry in the basement of the apartment building, I got ready very fast so that he would not have a chance to come back and ask more questions. I left him a note saying I was going to work and I would see him later. Since I was going to see Hendo, I wanted to look nice and actually wore my fancy underwear, even though Hendo could not see them, and also very nice jeans that AK47 said make my ass look good. I put on my lipstick quickly.
I met Hendo by the bus stop, where he had told me to meet him. He pulled up only a second after I got there.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said, getting into the car.
He drove with his arm on the wheel. “Sorry about last night. I was tired. You okay?”
I shrugged. “I’m okay. Gert is being a fuck-dick and a liar. He’s not supposed to be friends with Toucan anymore, and I am not supposed to tell anyone.”
“You’re telling me,” he said.
“You will not tell anyone, though.”
He said that was true. We drove a little while and I saw that he wasn’t turning to the library. I asked him why he wasn’t going to the library. He said he thought maybe I could skip work and we could hang out for the day.
“Call in sick. Have you ever missed a day?”
“No. Never. Vikings don’t break their pacts, especially when it comes to work that is important to the tribe.”
Hendo said that was true, but didn’t Vikings also take breaks for themselves to get rest? Besides, he said, he was looking forward to getting some alone time.
“Right?” he said.
I blinked and looked down, where he was holding my hand and putting his thumb over my knuckles. His thumb jumped over each one.
* * *
I called the library and asked to speak to Carol and told her that I could not come in. Hendo turned down the music and rolled up the windows so she wouldn’t know I was in a car.
“I’m sorry,” I said, coughing. “I am not feeling well.”
I expected Carol to be mad at me for calling at the last minute. Instead of yelling at me for breaking my promise to work, she said it was cool.
“You aren’t mad?”
“Zelda, honey, you’d walk uphill barefoot in the snow both ways before you missed work. Get some rest. I’ll get someone to fill in.” She told me to feel better before I hung up.
“See?” Hendo asked. “That wasn’t so hard.”
It wasn’t hard. But I still felt bad.
Hendo asked me what I wanted to do with our day together. Then he asked if I had ever had sushi.
“Isn’t that raw fish?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And other stuff too. But if you haven’t had it before, you have to try it.”
I made a face and said it sounded gross. “Okay.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “What about a movie? Nobody will be at the theater now.”
That sounded better than going to eat raw fish. Hendo let me pick the movie I wanted, so I picked a movie about Spider-Man.
All during the movie we ate popcorn and once Hendo put his hand on my leg and rubbed it. I put my hand on his leg and rubbed it too, to show him that I found him sexy. And then it happened: we kissed.
It was the most legendary kiss I had ever had. Marxy kissed a weird way, and Hendo kissed perfectly.
“Holy crap,” I said.
Hendo said, “Shhhh,” and laughed, because we were still in the theater and the movie was playing and I had said HOLY CRAP very loud.
Then he kissed my ear and my body became water. Hendo took my hand and squeezed it. My neck felt hot. On the screen, Spider-Man hung upside down and swung from one building to another building before saving the day.
* * *
The movie ended at 2 p.m. I did not feel bad about missing work anymore. Hendo kissed me again and put his arm around me while he walked.
“What do you say about going back to your place?” Hendo asked, finishing the soda from the movie and throwing it into the garbage can outside the movie theater.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. We never really hang out alone.” Then he turned to me and got serious. “Gert’s not home, right? Or his girlfriend? Can you call?”
And he kissed me and his tongue touched my tongue and I said okay, I would call Gert.
My heart was beating very quickly. Hendo’s hand touched my knee, and I put my hand on top of his hand and our fingers did a romantic thing where they pretended they were also kissing.
AK47 was driving the bus all day and would not be finished until 6 p.m.
Gert answered the phone and said he would be home by 4 p.m. He was going out to buy textbooks for his summer courses, which meant the apartment would be empty for two hours. “Why?” he said. “Is everything okay at the library?”
I told him I wanted to maybe hang out, after work, and he said that sounded nice.
“Well?” Hendo asked when I hung up, taking my hand.
“He won’t be home until four p.m.”
Hendo smiled, showing me his very white teeth.
In the car ride Hendo kissed me at every stoplight. Once someone crossing the street whistled at us and we both laughed.
Kissing Hendo was more legendary than kissing Marxy. He did perfect things with his tongue. He did not push it too much in, and he tasted good, like gum or toothpaste. He also smelled amazing.
When we got to the apartment and went inside, Hendo took off his shoes. “See? I remembered,” he said, and tapped the RULES OF THE HOUSE sign with his finger. While we kissed his hand touched my neck, behind where my hair started, and his fingers pulled the hair a little bit. That was so good I felt my kneecaps wiggle.
When he stopped kissing me it was like he took all of the air I had been breathing out of me.
“I want you to do something for me,” Hendo said. “Can you do something for me?”
He held on to my hands and stared into my eyes. I felt like I was about to fly away if he let me go.
“What is the thing?” I asked.
“I want you to wait in the bathroom for me.”
“Why?”
His hands squeezed my hands and then he put his hand onto my cheek, making it a pancake that warmed my face.
“It’s a surprise,” he said. “I am going to get ready and when you come out, you’ll be really happy. Trust me. You’ll like it.”
I took a deep breath. He touched the back of my neck so I said, “Okay. I do not normally like surprises.”
“But you’ll like this,” he said. After kissing me again he said, “Just count to a hundred and when you come out you’ll see.”
I caught my breath. “Just one hundred?”
“Just one hundred. After that, we’ll be all ready.”
* * *
I shut the door, sat on the edge of the bathtub, and started counting. My brain was swimming when I thought of Hendo’s muscles and what he would look like naked, and his penis and also what having sex with him would be like.
“Are you counting?” he asked through the door.
“I’m at eleven,” I said.
“Good. Keep going.”
I kept counting and went and looked in the mirror. The person I saw looked very sexy, and this person was me. I went close to the mirror and kissed it and even touched it with my tongue. When I stopped and stood back there was a picture of my mouth and lips stuck to the glass.