Free If We Kiss by Rachel Vail

it, unless people don’t get it and think it’s just unimaginative . . .”
    “Which people?” I got out and shut the door, not really wanting to hear her answer.
    I caught up to my friends and went up the walk to the back door. Tess said, “You okay?”
    I shrugged.
    “My mother would never want to be at a party with me,” Darlene said.
    “Lucky,” I said.
    “You think?” Darlene asked.
    “Let’s just go in,” Jennifer suggested, so we did. I don’t think they really wanted to show up at the party with my mom either, so we let the door close behind us as Mom was heading up the walk. Too bad if that’s rude, I decided.
    The party was in the room I think was supposed to be the dining room, except that instead of a dining table there was a pool table. I spotted George as soon as I got there. Well, he was pretty hard to miss. George is not what you’d call a skinny guy, though he is definitely not fat; he told me once that his mother said he has big bones. He was wearing a white turtleneck that was all bulged out by a pillow or two underneath, and a furry panda bear hat tied onto his head. He gave me a big smile and headed toward me.
    “It’s gonna be hard to kiss him past all that,” Tess whispered. “You’ll have to make him sit down.”
    “Shut up,” I said, scanning the room, subtly I hoped, for Kevin. I located him beside the drinks table, dressed as a vampire. It was just black pants, white button-down shirt, red bow tie, his hair slicked back with gel, and some makeup—whitened skin, black around his eyes, red on his mouth. In a sane state of mind I would have dismissed that get-up as being as hackneyed as my mother’s witch suit, but my hormones had apparently knocked me semiconscious: He looked so hot my mouth dropped open.
    “Hey,” George said.
    He startled me. I’d forgotten him again.
    “What?” I sounded defensive, even to myself, and beside me Jennifer jumped at the shrillness of my voice.
    “Good article,” George said.
    “Right.”
    “It was.”
    “I couldn’t even find it,” I said truthfully. I had had to read through the entire paper twice, once at school and later at home, before I could find my piece. It had been that kind of week.
    “Come on,” George said. “It was there.”
    “It was a tiny block, with no byline.” I had intended to sound confident and shrugging so the poutiness of my own voice surprised me.
    George touched my shoulder. “Well . . .”
    “And it had almost no information—only the date, time, and location of the board meeting.” Penelope had cut all my musings and filler. It was basically more of a notice than an article. “How did you even know it was mine?”
    “You told me you were covering it,” he said. “So I looked.”
    “Nice party,” I commented to change the subject.
    “Yeah, I guess. You look, um, nice. Good. As always. But, um, what are you dressed as?”
    “A lawn.”
    “A lawn?”
    “Yeah. Get it?”
    “With a Beanie Baby left out on it?”
    “A flamingo. Get it? Like, you know, when people put plastic flamingos on their lawns?”
    “Who does?”
    “Some people,” I said, trying to look past him at Kevin, who wasn’t budging from his spot across the room.
    “Really? Plastic flamingos? On their lawns? Why would people do that?”
    “I don’t know, George. What are you supposed to be?”
    He tilted his head and tried to make eye contact with me. “A panda.”
    “Oh,” I said, hating myself for being such a bitch. “Good one.”
    He stood there for another second or two, then said, “Thanks.” When I still wouldn’t look at him, he looked away, then asked, “You see the weather report today?”
    “The what?” I asked. Then remembering having been all freaked out on the phone with him about the weather report and its lack of long-term significance, I said, “No.” I’d figured he wasn’t even listening that day. I wasn’t really talking about the weather report then, anyway. It was just a