The Other Side

Chapter Seven

Mindy grimaced when she entered the kitchen in search of breakfast and found her mom and Leland still seated at the table. While Leland avoided looking at her, which he’d been doing since she threatened his manhood last week, her mom gave her a wide smile.

            “Good morning,” Lynette said.

            “If you say so,” Mindy said, and her mother laughed.

            “I see you’re playing the role of sullen teenager today,” Lynette observed.

            Mindy shrugged. “Why not?”

            “If you think you’re pissed off at the world now just wait until you hear the news I’ve got for you.”

            “What news?”

            “Your grandma’s coming for a visit next week.”

            “What for?”

            “That was my reaction to the news. Of course I couldn’t say that to your grandma. I just had to lie and tell her how much I couldn’t wait to see her again.”

            “And why does she want to see us again?”

            “With school starting in a few weeks, she wants to come see you and spend time with you before the summer’s gone and you’re too busy hitting the books to be bothered.”

            The glee in her mom’s voice was unmistakable. If her grandma focused all of her energy on Mindy then her mom wouldn’t be bothered by her.

            “This means you’ll have to hang out at home next week instead of running off to wherever it is you go all day,” Lynette continued.

            That wasn’t all it meant. Mindy glanced over at Nolan, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. Her grandma’s visit meant they wouldn’t be able to spend as much time together. It meant she’d have to ignore him while he pretended he didn’t exist. This visit from her grandma would be the first true taste of what the rest of their lives would be like. Even though it was a week away, Nolan was already shaking at the thought of how it would turn out.

            “That one looks like a duck on a broken surfboard,” Mindy said and pointed to an indiscriminate cloud in the sky.

            In an effort to get away from her mom and Leland, she and Nolan had gone to the park. There they laid out a blanket and stretched out on their backs. They made sure to choose a secluded spot behind a large cluster of trees so that no one would notice the girl talking to herself. Then they spent the last hour searching the clouds for funny pictures. 

Tired of looking at clouds, Nolan rolled to his side and propped himself on one elbow. “This one looks like the most beautiful girl in the world,” he said and ran a finger down her cheek.

            Mindy giggled. “You’re so corny.”

            “Maybe, but I still think I should get a kiss for trying to be romantic,” Nolan said.

            When he moved atop her, Mindy slipped her arms around his neck and pulled his head to hers. After sharing so many kisses, he’d grown familiar with the process. Before it even happened, he could anticipate the movements of her lips and tongue and what his response would be. Despite this familiarity, it still excited him not only to kiss her but what it meant to kiss her. Mindy was his girlfriend, and she loved him and she proved it with every kiss whether slow and gentle or hard and urgent. Sometimes what started out as tender would quickly turn to frenzied passion, and he could always sense the change.