“I don’t know, Andrew. It’s hard to talk about,” she said, passing Emma and Melanie as they got into Melanie’s Lexus. They seemed to be in a spirited conversation. No doubt the same one she and Andrew were having but with more emotion. Having a son had spared her theatrics . . . except her own, of course.
“Why is it hard to talk about? Your past with Em’s parents would have been nice to know. Could have saved us a lot of awkward moments.”
Tennyson turned. “You want to know why? ’Cause Kit broke my heart.”
“But you said you broke up with him.”
She pulled out onto Line Avenue, nearly sideswiping a Tahoe. Andrew grabbed the seat and made a sound, but she ignored it. “I did.”
“So how were you heartbroken?”
Tennyson sucked in a breath. “Jared’s your best friend, right? Well, imagine if you had to break up with Emma, and he started dating her. Then he proposed. Then they got engaged and sent you an invitation to the wedding.”
“I wouldn’t break up with Emma. Why did you ‘have to’ break up?” He seemed very smug for someone who didn’t really know how hard life was. What did her son know about struggling? About being invisible in the world? About having to cash in a savings bond to buy a prom dress or taking out huge college loans or eating Ramen noodles just so a gal could afford to chase her dream?
Her son had never known suffering. Andrew wore his white pretty-boy image like most—denying he had it, guilty for it having served him so well, but not willing to hand back that monthly check he received from his father’s estate in order to stand on his own two feet. Hey, she didn’t blame him, but he couldn’t understand who she used to be and how her successes had depended solely on her ability to hustle, sacrifice, and constantly search for opportunity.
“I had a scholarship, a very tiny one, to the New York Academy and a job working as an assistant for a director who did summer theatre the June after I graduated high school. Sounds crazy, but I thought the world was very big. I decided I couldn’t continue to be the Tennyson I had always been. I was starting over and needed room to come into my own. I loved Kit, and truly thought we would probably get back together. He was a marketing major and wanted to work in advertising. We’d always joked that he would come up to NYC and we’d live there together. We agreed to break up because we both needed to experience the worlds we were about to enter. You have to understand that there was no Skype or Snapchat. The only way to communicate was with letters and long-distance phone calls that made for an astronomical phone bill. It was a different world, and very tough to maintain a relationship if you weren’t in the same area.”
Andrew nodded. “Yeah, I guess I can see that. I can’t imagine that world, but it seems logical.”
“When I came home for the holidays that first year, we hung out and picked up where we left off. Things were normal, until they weren’t. Kit and Melanie went to school together, and they gravitated toward one another. I suppose things just happened between them.”
What she didn’t say was that she had blamed Melanie and not Kit. From the very first glimpse of Kit, Melanie had fallen helplessly in love. She could still remember the exact moment they’d both laid eyes on the hot new sophomore. Melanie’s parents had just bought her the cutest convertible Volkswagen Cabriolet, and since Tennyson lived around the corner, Melanie picked her up for school each morning. That morning, they’d decided to ride with the top down, singing Madonna and essentially being cool as shit because that was what you thought you were when you were fifteen years old. They’d been two sophomore girls channeling their inner rock stars, sexy, sassy, and about to get rained on. Tennyson had laughed when Melanie flipped out about not being able to get the top up as thunderclouds gathered overhead. Luckily, someone from the strip mall they’d pulled into had helped them. But it had made them late for school.
They’d just walked in, brushing the raindrops from their hair-sprayed bangs, when Principal Addison opened his office door and led a well-dressed lady out into the main office. Trailing behind her was the most gorgeous guy Tennyson had ever seen.
Like every movie with a hot guy walking onto the scene, the world seemed to fade away, and “fine guy” music began to play in her head. She would have sworn real life slowed as Kit brushed back his too-long bleached hair and then shoved his hands into the back pockets of his acid-washed Levi’s. He wore high-top sneakers, a pair of Oakley sunglasses perched on his head, and a JanSport navy backpack slung over one shoulder. In other words, he was super, mega fine with a cherry on top. And the smile around his sexy lips when he noticed the girls told her he knew it.
Tennyson later swore that her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, and she knew Melanie felt the same way because when she looked over at her best friend, she thought about reaching out and pushing her chin up to close her mouth. Melanie hadn’t drooled, but if she had, Tennyson would have understood why.
“Mine.”
Tennyson hadn’t meant to say that word out loud, but it seemed imperative to call dibs on the gorgeous new student. She wanted it known because every girl who had a pulse would be interested in the new guy.
“Oh, here are some of our students. Both these young ladies are in the same grade as Christopher,” Mr. Addison said.
“Kit,” the boy said.
“Oh yes. Kit. Girls, come over here and meet our newest Falcon. This is Kit Layton and his mother. They moved to Shreveport last week,” Mr. Addison said, motioning them forward.
They took the check-in slips from Mrs. Anita and walked over. Tennyson tried to act like she wasn’t that interested, perhaps even bothered by having to greet a new student when geometry was waiting for her, but Melanie had been atypically animated, gushing about how happy everyone would be to have a new classmate. She’d really poured it on thick, and Kit looked slightly taken aback at her enthusiasm. Usually, Melanie was quieter, more willing to let Tennyson take the lead, but not this time. She was a positively chatty Cathy, with dimpled little smiles and a flirty laugh.
“I’m Tennyson,” she said after Melanie ran out of steam.
Kit’s mother smiled. “Like the poet?”
“My mother’s an English teacher. She did this whole thing,” she said, with a little exasperation tempered with an embarrassed smile. “My brother’s name is Heathcliff. At least he can shorten it to Heath. Tenny doesn’t really work as well.”
“Oh, is your mother a teacher here?” Mrs. Layton asked.
“No, ma’am. She teaches public school. I’m here for the theatre program. It’s excellent.” She didn’t add that it was on scholarship because there was no way her public-servant parents could afford tuition at Eastwood Prep with their salaries and five kids to feed. She tried to forget that she was a charity case at the private school.
“Kit does theatre. Or he did before he started playing sports.”
Kit shrugged. “I like hitting home runs better than I like wearing stage makeup.”
Mr. Addison nodded. “I played some ball in my day, too.”
“Well, I must be getting back to the house. I have furniture coming,” Mrs. Layton said, glancing out at the bright autumn day.
“Will one of you walk Kit to second period? He’s in Mr. Leopold’s world history class.”