So the Season's Changed Your Face

On Fridays, I eat dinner with the Cardens. You’re probably thinking many things currently. Why are Mr. and Mrs. Carden home on Friday evenings? Shouldn’t Mike be at band practice? Shouldn’t you eat dinner with your poor mother?

Well, Bunco Night got moved to Tuesday evenings and therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Carden are always home on Friday evenings. Drive Like June got put on the backburner because Schaumburg is a lot more demanding than anyone could have expected, and as Mike says, he has, “too much fucking work to be in a band I don’t give two shits about”. And considering my mom doesn’t cook, there is no way I can eat dinner with my poor mother.

This Friday, we were enjoying good, old-fashioned spaghetti and meatballs. I swear I have gained ten pounds since I started eating dinner with the Cardens. Mrs. Carden really likes pasta.

Mike was sitting across from me and kept pulling faces, almost causing me to squirt water out of my nose multiple times. I aimed a kick at him but apparently misjudged, because it wasn’t Mike who flinched in pain, but Mr. Carden.

Luckily for me, Mr. Carden has a pretty good sense of humor and didn’t give me too much shit about kicking him, but I still could have died right there in that dining room.

I mean, Mike and I have been dating for two and a half months now and I’ve been walking on eggshells around his parents ever since…you know…that one, really embarrassing thing happened.

I think Mrs. Carden still hasn’t gotten over it. According to Mike, she gave him the talk – again – the moment he got back from dropping me off and picking up Lucas. She was not pleased, apparently.

And I guess I can’t blame her, but it would be really nice if she would stop giving me this look. I’m not sure what the look exactly is. It’s not a dirty look, but I have a feeling nonetheless she is judging me or questioning my upbringing or wondering if she was making a mistake by letting Mike date me.

Mike and his dad have very clearly gotten over it, but there is always an unspoken rivalry between the mother and the girlfriend. It’s inevitable. And I don’t think Mrs. Carden is ever going to forget that I slept with her son.

Anyway.

After dinner was finished, I volunteered to help clean up (trying to get back on Mrs. Carden’s good side, I'll admit), but Mike insisted that we leave immediately. He literally whisked me out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Carden called after us. Mike didn’t answer, and as I didn’t know where the fuck he was taking me, I didn’t either. “Don’t stay out too late, you guys!”

Mike’s mom gives him way too much leeway. My mom would never let me leave the house if I didn’t tell her exactly where I was going and with who and how long I would be gone.

“Where are we going?” I asked, buckling my seatbelt.

“Somewhere,” Mike said, shaking his head and pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the glove compartment. “Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”

He lit a cigarette and rolled down his window. “Sorry,” he said, referring to the cigarette burning between his fingers. “It’s just that she’s been driving me absolutely nuts.”

“It’s fine, really,” I said. Truthfully, I find him very attractive when he smokes. I’ve never told him this because I know he would find some way to hold it against me. He’s an asshole like that. “We can find somewhere to just chill for a few hours. I mean, if you need to clear your head, I’ll always listen to you bitch and moan.”

He turned and smiled at me. “Thanks. Maybe not tonight…but I’ll take a rain check,”

Five minutes later, we were in very unfamiliar territory. I don’t think I’ve ever been this deep into Mike’s neighborhood. He clearly knew where he was, but I was incredibly turned around. “Mike, you’re not going to kill me and throw me into a ditch, are you?”

“No, not today,” Mike said, smirking. He flicked his cigarette butt out of the window. “Maybe some other day.”

“Good to know,” I commented, straining to read the nearest street sign. “Maple Street? Where the fuck are we?”

“Don’t worry, I know exactly where we are,” he assured me. “I used to come out here all the time and play soccer with my friends. I haven’t been out here for awhile but it’s nice and it’s pretty quiet when people aren’t around and…”

Mike took the next turn and then took a few more. The sun was setting and I could just see a grassy field before us.

Mike parked the car and shoved his cigarettes in his pocket. Apparently, we were going to be here for awhile.

I followed him around to the trunk, which he popped open, revealing a mess of things, including his acoustic guitar (which was missing two strings), a few textbooks, his swimming bag, and another bag I had never seen. It was this bag he opened, revealing a flashlight, flares, extra batteries, jumper cables, a blanket, and a bag of trail mix.

“My mom,” he commented, tugging the blanket from the bag. “She thinks I’m going to break down in the middle of fucking nowhere one day.”

Once the blanket was free from the trunk, Mike closed it and locked his car. He lit another cigarette and we set off toward the field, Mike carrying the blanket under his arm.

It didn’t really matter where we laid down the blanket because no one was out here, so Mike stopped without warning, held his cigarette between his teeth and unfolded the blanket. I kicked off my shoes and proceeded to kneel down, lowering myself down on my knees first. And, of course, my right knee came into contact with an unseen rock.

“Fuck!” I shouted, holding my knee. “Shit! There was a fucking-” I rifled underneath the blanket and found the offending rock. I threw it as far as I was able to. “-rock under the blanket.”

I patted down the rest of the blanket, searching for more rocks as Mike chuckled at me (asshole). There weren’t any more rocks (that I could feel, at least), and decided it was safe for me to lie down.

Mike and I laid side by side on our backs, staring up into the darkening sky. The stars were much more visible out here, away from the city-glow.

Suddenly, Mike pointed up into the sky. “That one’s Pegasus,” he commented. “The big box is Pegasus. And that’s Andromeda connected to it.” He shrugged (as well as he could, as he was on his back) and fell silent.

“How do you know that?” I asked. “I mean, the constellations. It just looks like a bunch of stars to me.”

“It is just a bunch of stars,” he said. “My dad is really into Astronomy and stuff. We used to spent a lot of time stargazing. He taught me how to recognize all of the constellations and planets.”

“I never would have guessed,” I responded, turning my head to look at him. “You don’t look like you’d know anything about space.”

“I know a lot about chess, too, if you were wondering,” he laughed. “You know, the constellations don’t really look like that. Like, in space. The stars aren’t even close to each other. They’re millions and millions of light-years away from each other so they don’t form shapes in space. It’s all perspective.”

“Between you and me, they don’t form shapes on Earth, either,”

“You just don’t have an imagination,” Mike joked. “I mean, that box is clearly a winged horse and those lines connected to it are clearly a chained woman.”

“Yeah, okay Mike,” I said, rolling my eyes. “The only constellation that looks like what it’s supposed to be is the Big Dipper.”

“And Crux,” Mike added. “Crux definitely looks like what the Ancient Greeks said it was.”

“So, why did you and your dad stop stargazing?” I asked after a lapse of silence.

“I don’t know. I started swimming and playing chess and then I picked up a guitar,” he shrugged. “I had other things to do. Plus, he had to teach Lucas all this shit, right?”

“Why don’t you start again?”

Mike blew smoke out of his nose. “Dad’s got enough on his plate. He’s teaching Lucas how to drive right now. I think he should focus on one thing at a time.”

“Any planets up there?” I asked, straining my eyes – not like I’d be able to recognize a planet from a star even if I tried.

“No,” Mike answered. “Well, technically, yes. But it’s just Uranus and you need binoculars to see it.”

The last few words of Mike’s sentence were almost indistinguishable because he was laughing so hard. He may be turning nineteen in three months, but he was still a twelve year old at heart.

“Hey, speaking of Uranus,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows. “Are you going to go to Barrington’s homecoming game with me?”

“What does that have to do with Uranus?” Mike asked, still laughing. “That has nothing to do with Uranus!”

“I don’t know. I just remembered,” I rolled onto my side. “So, are you going to come?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, turning onto his side as well and holding his head in his hand. “I mean, I went to the all the other games. Might as well go to this one too.”

“Cool,” I said. “I think we’re playing you’re school though.”

“Well, I’m still a Bronco at heart, so…go Broncos!” he pumped his fist in the air.

“Don’t let your Schaumburg buddies hear that,” I smirked. “They’ll disown you.”

“I’m not too concerned,” he said, shaking his head and smirking.

“Mike?”

“Hmm?”

“It’s fucking freezing out here,”

The sun had set some time ago and we were laying in darkness, the only light coming from the distant streetlights and the tip of Mike’s cigarette.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, then come closer. Actually, wait.”

He took a final drag on his cigarette and twisted to stamp it out in the grass.

“Mike, if you set this field on fire…”

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Okay, now come here.”

I wiggled my way toward Mike and buried my face in his chest. He put his arm around me and placed his chin on my head.

“Your hair smells good,” he whispered.

“You smell good,”

“Still cold?”

“Yes,”

“Want my sweater?”

“No, no,” I said. “I don’t want you to be cold.”

“It’s no problem,” he assured. “Really, it’s not a problem. I’d rather you be warm.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll take your sweater. If you insist,” I said, faking exasperation.

“I do insist,” he said. He sat up and unzipped his sweater, revealing a plain black tee shirt. He was going to freeze in a matter of minutes, but as he is the most stubborn person I have ever met, I knew he would sit there in the cold without the sweater on, even if I didn’t take it. He’s just one of those people. You just have to go with it if you want to avoid an unnecessary argument.

He draped the sweatshirt over me; it was very warm from his body heat and smelled wonderfully of his cologne. “Thanks, Mike,”

“It’s no problem,” he said, lying back down. “But you’re going to have to come a lot closer if I’m going to maintain a healthy body temperature.”

“I have no problem with that,” I replied, getting as close to him as humanly possible. “Though we should probably get back in the car and find somewhere warm to chill if we don’t want to catch colds.”

“Actually, you don’t catch colds from merely being cold. You catch colds from staying indoors, trapped with germs,” Mike lectured. “Just so you know.”

I couldn’t see his face, seeing as mine was in his chest again, but I could tell by his tone that he was wearing a very self-satisfied smile.

“Mike?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up,”

And so he did…for about ten seconds.

“You know, Vivi,” he started, “We’d probably be warmer if we were spooning.”

“You would say something like that!”

“Well, it’s true,” he said, sounding very defensive. “There would be more body heat and stuff.”

“You’re so subtle sometimes, Mike,” I said sarcastically. “Sometimes, I don’t know how I catch on.”

Nonetheless, I turned over and Mike pressed his body against mine. It was much warmer, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of being right.

He draped his arm over my waist and nuzzled his nose into my hair. I could feel his breath against my neck.

“It’s a good thing you smell good,” he whispered. “Or else this would not be okay.”

He kissed the back of my neck and said nothing else. Before I knew it, his arm was very heavy on my waist and his breathing had gotten very deep. Mrs. Carden’s spaghetti was finally settling in my belly and I, too, was growing sleepy. I snuggled a little closer into Mike and closed my eyes, vowing only to doze off for a minute or two.