Holiday Exchange Gift for wizbey
Title: How Old My Heart
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel
Rating: 12+
Summary: High school life in a small town.
Word Count: ~4100
Notes: For wizbey, who asked for AU Len and Christine went to the same high school.
The best thing about living in a small town was that everyone knew you. Christine was never going to be popular, but when she started high school everyone already knew who she was. Knew she was smart. Knew she might occasionally share correct answers with a classmate in a pinch.
And knew she was responsible, which was why the school nurse deputized her as first aid attendant at football practices. Christine spent a lot of time sitting on the sidelines, doling out icepacks and Gatorade to hulking seniors and overenthusiastic cheerleaders.
And that was how she got invited to the senior grad party.
She was sitting on the bleachers next to the cheerleaders, watching the jocks crash into each other on the field in some drill or other, when Jimmy, pride of the town and star quarterback, came bounding over.
"Nyota!" he cried, landing in front of the beautiful squad captain with a flourish. "It's official. Party at my house after grad. You're coming, right?" He gestured with his arm to the rest of the cheerleaders. "All of you?"
Christine stifled a grin at the look on Nyota's face. Jimmy had been finding increasingly public ways to ask Nyota on a date, and refused to believe she was dating a college boy from the next town.
Glancing down, Christine made herself busy with the first aid kit to avoid looking like she wanted to be included in the invitation. In four years time she was going to go to her own senior grad party, hosted by whoever the quarterback would be that year, and that was fine.
Jimmy's pitch to Nyota continued. "C'mon, everyone's going to be there! You'll be there, right, Carol? Jocelyn? Tonia? Janice?"
Christine looked up to see all the other cheerleaders, down to fellow freshman Janice, all nodding and smiling, and Christine couldn't help but smile too at Nyota's expression.
"Even little Chris is going to come, right?" Jimmy turned the full force of his grin on Christine unexpectedly, and she couldn't help but blush.
"We'll see," Nyota said evenly, as if not going was still a real possibility, which everyone knew it wasn't.
"I'll take it," Jimmy said. "And all the rest of you girls as well-the party won't be a success without you!" Suddenly he was leaning down, inches from Christine's face. "And I mean it, little Chris. I know you're not the party type, but you'll have fun, I promise."
And with that, he was bounding back onto the field, and the chatter of the girls beside her rose to a new height.
"Are you going to go?" Janice was suddenly beside her.
"I don't know. Maybe for a while, but I have curfew."
"Who cares about curfew?" Tonia, one of the juniors interjected from higher up on the bleachers. "It's the senior grad party. Everyone should go!"
"I agree," said Janice, nodding. "You should go."
"Because you want to go and if I'm going, your parents will let you go too?"
Janice grinned and hugged her. "You read my mind!"
The worst thing about living in a small town was that everyone knew everyone else, and had since birth. Moving to a small town in the middle of your last year of high school was hell, and in a very real way Leonard was counting the days until he moved back out and went to college with his old friends.
But he was making the best of it in the meantime. Football being played year round in this podunk town meant that a defensive back position was available to a six-foot-tall athletic newcomer. And the kids weren't unfriendly, they just knew so much about each other that it was kind of creepy.
The quarterback, Jimmy, had taken a personal interest in him, for reasons passing understanding. When Leonard asked why Jimmy went out of his way to make sure he knew about every house party, every drunkfest in the woods, every cow-tipping expedition or whatever they did for fun here, Jimmy clapped him on the back and said, "Teamwork, Lenny! Teamwork!"
Which wasn't an answer, but podunk town or not, Leonard wasn't anti-fun, and was definitely going to the senior grad party. Jimmy's parents left as Leonard arrived with a wave and a final "Try not to wreck the place!" As soon as their car disappeared, kids started to arrive as if by magic, and the house was soon filled to the rafters with drunk teenagers.
It was about what Leonard expected. He wandered from room to room, nursing a coke because he was driving, greeting the people he knew but not really falling into conversation. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of two too-young girls curled up in the same chair, giggling over something.
Jimmy clapped him on the back "LenNY! How's it going?"
"Good party," said Leonard. "Why are there twelve-year-olds here?"
"Freshmen, Lenny! Freshmen! We owe it to the next generation, you know."
"To show them how to party?"
"How else will they learn? That reminds me!" Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. "Party games! Write your name down!"
Leonard did so, handing it back with some trepidation, and the Jimmy was off again, spinning around the room, collecting slips of paper and making people laugh. Sighing, Leonard tried not to think about the grad party that would be happening at his old school, and headed out to the porch for some fresh air.
Christine and Janice had arrived together, and because they were likely the only freshmen there, made the unspoken decision to watch what happened at the party rather than participate.
Janice had found a chair for them with a good view, and they were shamelessly spying.
"Look! Isn't that the Scottish exchange student?"
"The one who hangs around shop class all the time. Yes. And that's..."
Janice peered. "I can't see her face. Just the red hair."
"It is! Wasn't she dating Jimmy?"
"That was last month. She's moved on, Jimmy has definitely moved on..."
Christine giggled. "Jimmy always--"
"Always what?" Suddenly Jimmy was right in front of her, and she blushed hard.
"Um...throws a good party?" she offered.
"Nice save, little Chris." Jimmy flashed a grin. "And speaking of good parties, you two should be out there enjoying yourselves, not huddled up in a corner."
"Okay," she agreed. "We'll get out and talk to people."
Janice nodded her agreement, apparently tongue-tied.
"Liars, both of you," he said affectionately. "But Jimmy is here to fix that." He handed them each a small piece of paper. "Write your names down. We're doing party games."
Janice's eyes widened. "What kind of games?"
"The kind where Jimmy gets to kiss a lot of girls," Christine told her.
"Ouch!" Jimmy gave her a mock frown. "I'm not going to forget you said that, little Chris."
"Sorry, Jimmy," she said immediately.
His smile came back. "Too late, ladies." Snatching up the pieces of paper, he disappeared.
Janice nudged her and whispered in her ear. "I think Jimmy's going to kiss you."
"No!" Christine drew back, shocked. "No way. He wants to go out with Nyota."
"Maybe." Janice shrugged. "But I think he's going to make sure he kisses you during whatever this game is."
"Really?" Christine felt her face grow hot. She'd never bothered thinking about Jimmy that way; he was a senior, and popular, and so far out of her league that-
"Okay, ladies and gents!" Jimmy raised his voice to get the attention of the crowd. "The game is Seven Minutes In Heaven!"
There was a collective groan from everyone in the room.
"I know! I know your concerns. It's a kids' game."
The crowd murmured agreement.
"Plus some of you have already started without the closet."
There was definite laughter.
"But this is our last party together! Seniors, we are moving on! Heading for brighter things, and leaving our high school brethren who love us behind forever." Jimmy paused, as the seniors nodded. "And everyone else, this is your last chance to know what it's like to kiss us!"
There were some definite whoops and cheering then.
Christine rolled her eyes. "Only Jimmy could make a kissing game sound inspirational," she murmured.
Janice grinned. "You may just get to see how inspirational."
Christine blushed again and shut up.
"All right." Jimmy waved two hats. "This one has the girls' names in it, and this one has the guys. As host, I'll draw the first names, and then the winning girl and guy will each draw after that. Ready?"
"Yeah!" said the crowd.
"Okay. And the guy is-Monty!"
Silence.
Someone came up and murmured in Jimmy's ear.
"Apparently Monty did start without us." Jimmy paused until the hooting died down, then rummaged around in the hat again. "So let's go with...Lenny!"
"Aw, damn it, Jimmy!" came a voice from the back of the room.
"Come on, Lenny, be nice. There's a lady involved," Jimmy scolded. "Get up here."
"The new guy," Janice whispered.
Christine nodded in agreement. Tall, dark, frowning too much to see if he was actually good looking. Too quiet, kept to himself, not like Jimmy at all. Though now he was standing beside Jimmy, they looked like a matched pair-both six foot tall, one blond, one brunet. Day and night. Salt and Pepper. She giggled.
And nearly missed the glance Jimmy shot her, so quick she might have imagined it.
Jimmy went into the girls' hat. "And the lucky lady is...little Chris!"
Now he did look at her, and his smile was evil.
Christine blushed, her jaw dropping from the shock. Janice shoved her out of the chair they were sharing, forcing her to her feet, and she barely registered the look of disbelief on Lenny's face.
"See?" said Jimmy. "Freshman, senior...we're mixing it up already. The mudroom awaits. Here's your timer," he waved an old wind-up egg timer at them, "set for seven minutes, which you can take in with you, should you decide you need more time."
There were more whoops and hollering, which Christine barely noticed, as Jimmy's firm hand on her back was propelling her towards the back of the house.
And then she found herself in a quiet, darkened room with one window and a screen door, through which the moon and stars shone their light. With a young man who was holding an egg timer and scowling at her.
Leonard was vowing vengeance on Jimmy from the moment his name was called. But this? Being put in a closet with a-
"How old are you, kid?"
She scowled. "I'm fourteen. And don't call me kid. I'll be fifteen soon."
"Right, fifteen," he muttered.
"How old are you?" she demanded.
"Eighteen. I'll be nineteen soon," he mimicked.
She rolled her eyes. "And my name's Christine."
"Okay. My name's Leonard."
"I know."
Right. Of course. Time to cut your losses, he told himself. "Look, ki-Christine, I get the sense you don't want to be here anymore than I do, and I don't know what Jimmy's doing-"
"I teased him," said the ki-Christine.
"What?"
"I told him he was just playing this game so that he could kiss girls."
Leonard barked out a laugh. "That's true."
"And then I tried to apologize, and he said too late, and I thought that meant..." She broke off miserably.
He hesitated for a moment. Damn it, he was a football player, not a counsellor. "You wanted him to kiss you?"
"Yes," she said, suddenly defiant. "I did."
"You...like him?"
"Of course not." The scorn was back. "That would be stupid."
"Of course," Leonard agreed, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"But he's kissed lots of girls and I've never kissed anyone so if he kissed me he could do it really well, and maybe he could show me how to do it...too..."
"Ah."
"Shut up," she told him.
He stifled a laugh. She was a bright little thing, and seemed to be handling disappointment well. "You know," he ventured. "I've kissed lots of girls."
She shot him a look that spoke volumes. "I don't want to kiss you."
"Okay," he said equably. "Why not?"
"I don't even know you."
"But you know Jimmy?"
"Of course! We-"
Grew up together, Leonard finished in his head, while she started to recount some time when she was six and Jimmy was ten and someone fell off a bike while heading to a crick to catch frogs or some damn thing. Podunk town strikes again.
"You're not listening," she said.
"No, I'm not," he admitted. "You're talking about knowing him forever, and that's...great," he decided. "Great. But in your life you're going to meet lots of folks who are complete strangers, and you need to deal with them too."
Christine's brow furrowed, but she seemed to digest this.
"Kissing a friend is easy," Leonard told her. "Kissing a complete stranger, taking a chance that he could one day become a friend...that's the real challenge."
He waited, and she didn't disappoint. After about fifteen seconds, she nodded. "Okay. Kiss me."
"Are you sure?" he asked, moving in closer while surreptitiously edging the egg timer dial back a few notches with his thumb. He was going to need more than seven minutes for this.
"Yes." She nodded, then stared up at him, clearly at a loss.
"Okay," he said. "For this first time, you don't need to do anything. I'm just going to kiss you, okay?"
"Okay."
Her mouth was closed and her eyes were round in the moonlight as he leaned down, slowly, and touched his lips to hers. A bit of warm pressure, and then he lifted his head.
She blinked up at him.
"Was that okay?" he asked.
"Yes," she said slowly, "but..."
"Let's sit." He motioned to the bench on the back wall under the coat pegs, setting the egg timer down behind him. She went with him easily, but sat a good six inches away from him. "Now you kiss me, the same way."
He thought he saw understanding in her eyes. "Okay."
Stretching up, she pressed her lips to his the same way he'd done to her.
A few fireworks went off in his brain, but he did his best to ignore them.
When she started to pull away he cupped her cheek in his palm to stop her, and kissed her again, playing with her bottom lip. She was a quick study, and soon their mouths were seriously fusing together.
After a minute or two he lifted his head, registered the sound of their breathing, and said, "Tongues?"
"Yes," she said, and he proceeded to show her, step by step, how that was done, eventually getting to the point where she had really perfected a couple of slides and flicks that almost made him forget to keep pushing the egg timer dial backwards.
It was only when he realized his hands were sliding up to her breasts, unbidden, that he came back to himself. He was not about to go any further with a fourteen-year-old than he already had.
And so, with real regret, he dropped his hands to her waist and let the egg timer run down.
The shrill ring startled them both.
"Okay?" he asked.
She nodded. "I...yeah." After a moment, the egg timer still shrilling behind him, she stood up and turned on the overhead light.
He stood up too. "You're a very good kisser, Christine," he told her.
Even with her flushed cheeks, he could still see her redden further. "Thank you, Leonard," she said, in a tone that made him want to shut the light off and kiss her again, just so she wouldn't think about crying.
He started this, he reminded himself. It was up to him to finish it. "Now," he said, picking up the insistently ringing alarm. "Let's go make Jimmy pay."
She laughed at that, regrets chased away, at least temporarily, and followed him out of the room while he waved the alarm at the crowd and bellowed, "Jimmy! That was definitely not set for seven minutes!"
Christine was glad he made her laugh. It was just practice kissing; it wasn't supposed to mean anything, but while it was happening it felt like it did.
She filed that information away for further study later and followed him back out to the crowd, where enough people immediately began laughing at Jimmy's protests of innocence that no one was paying attention to her.
"All right, all right," Jimmy said, shoving the two hats of names at Leonard. "Time for you two to pick."
"Everyone ready for the next round?" Leonard said, handing one of the hats to Christine, then digging into his.
The cheer went up, and he pulled out a name. "And the winner is...Jimmy!" He waved the paper around as if to display it to the crowd, but when Jimmy made a lunge to grab it, he dropped it back in the hat.
Christine laughed at Jimmy's expression, not least because the glimpse she'd caught of the name looked like Gary or Garret or something beginning with G.
Leonard winked at her, and she rummaged in her hat. "And for the girls, the winner is..."
She hesitated, reading the name, looked up and somehow caught Nyota's gaze. Nyota was nice; Christine wouldn't do that to her. Besides, she owed Jimmy some payback. So she said the first name that came to her head.
"Janice!"
She did the same thing Leonard had, flashing the paper at the crowd too quick for anyone to read, then dropping it back in the hat.
Leonard was looking down at her in admiration, and Jimmy was shaking his head. "I thought we were friends, little Chris."
"I'm Janice's friend too," she said pertly.
Jimmy gave a surprised laugh at that.
"And I'm setting the timer this time," said Leonard.
Janice made her way nervously towards them and Christine leaned in. "Tell me everything," she whispered, and Janice giggled.
Christine grinned at the look Jimmy shot her over Janice's head.
And then the two of them were gone, and the crowd had ceased caring and gone back to their own conversations, and Christine was standing awkwardly next to Leonard.
"Want a drink?" he asked.
"Um..." As she was trying to decide what that meant and whether he just was being polite or whether he actually wanted to spend more time with her, she caught sight of the clock on the mantel. "It's 8:30? I need to be home by nine."
"I'll walk you," Leonard said.
She was about to say he didn't need to, but surprised herself by saying "Okay," instead.
Halfway down the porch steps, she realized she was abandoning Janice. "Wait," she said, and Leonard stopped.
Heading back inside, she found Nyota. "Could you tell Janice I've gone home?"
Nyota smiled. "Don't worry, I'll make sure she gets home safe. Thanks, Chris."
Leonard wasn't sure why he'd volunteered to walk Christine home. She hadn't expected him to-it was still early, and one of the good things about podunk small towns was that it was safe for young girls to walk the streets after dark.
And now he was stuck making conversation with her for the next twenty minutes.
"So," he said as they headed out into the summer night, the sound of the party fading and the hum of the cicadas blossoming in its place. "You've lived here all your life?"
"Yes," said Christine. "Born and raised. You moved here after Christmas. How do you like it?"
"It's okay," he said.
She glanced over at him. "You had friends at your old school? Do you miss them?"
"Yes," he admitted. "But I'll see them again soon. A couple of them, their families have places on the beach near Savannah, so I'll be heading there next week. Probably stay there for the summer, and then head straight to U Miss in the fall."
"So you won't be back," Christine said.
"No," he said. After a few seconds of silence, he realized she was probably trying to find out if he was boyfriend material; what with their solid half hour of making out, she probably was jumping to conclusions.
"So," he began, wracking his brain for a safe topic of conversation. "How'd you end up being the first aid attendant?"
She shrugged. "The school nurse likes me for some reason. Plus I actually studied when I took the first aid certification. It just happened."
"You thinking of going into medicine?" he asked.
Another shrug. "I like science, but I don't know. What about you?"
"I'm going to be a doctor. Like my dad."
"Cool," she said.
They turned a corner and Christine skipped a few yards ahead. "This is my house," she said.
"Okay," he said. "I enjoyed meeting you, Christine."
"I enjoyed meeting you too," she said, politely. "I don't think we'll see each other again..."
"Probably not," he agreed. Then smiled down at her. "But thank you for letting me be your first kiss."
She scowled in a way that was becoming familiar. "That wasn't my first kiss."
"Oh?" he said. "Sorry, I didn't-"
"That was just practice. It didn't count."
He couldn't help but grin. "But we did-"
"Not really." She wrinkled her nose. "That was just Jimmy and the game. My first kiss will happen after my first date, with a boy who actually likes me, and you are not going to ruin that for me by blabbing all over school, will you, Leonard."
Her gaze was so steely and determined by the end of that little speech that he had to work to not laugh out loud.
"Okay," he said. "But just so I know. Does this boy have a name?"
"Not yet." Her chin jutted up. "I'm considering my options."
And heaven help whoever you settle on, he thought. Out loud, he said, "So it could be, for instance, some boy you meet at a party, who walks you home in time for curfew, even though he doesn't really have to..."
Her eyes narrowed. "A boy who is about to leave for college and won't ever return?"
"Could be," he admitted.
"I don't think I want that," she said.
"It would be romantic, though," he said. "Tragic, sad, but romantic."
"Romantic." She was clearly skeptical.
"Yeah. Like, uh, The Notebook."
"They end up married in The Notebook."
"They do?"
She suddenly giggled. "You've never seen The Notebook?"
"I'm a guy." He shrugged and grinned. "Okay, doomed romance. Um. Romeo and...no, bad example."
She giggled again. "How about 'When you are old and gray...'"
"'...and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire'?" Thank god for AP English. "That works." He frowned. "How do you know Yeats?"
"All teenage girls read love poems," she told him.
"All of you?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yes," she said. "All of us. How do you know him?"
"All teenage boys read love poems," he said.
"Really?"
"Yes. To pick up teenage girls."
She punched his arm, laughing, and he grabbed her hand to bring it to his mouth for a light kiss. "I can do romance," he said.
"Can you?" she asked, but clearly having her hand kissed had caused some of her skepticism to fade.
He reached out and brushed back a lock of blonde hair. "'Dream of the soft look your eyes had once,'" his fingertips caressed her temple, "'and of their shadows deep...'"
"Oh," she breathed out, probably unaware that she was leaning into his touch as he traced the side of her cheek.
"'How many loved your moments of glad grace...'" Drawing her in with an arm around her waist, he continued. "'And loved your beauty with love false or true...'"
His thumb rested at the corner of her mouth and her lips parted and he was caught, as surely as she was.
"'But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you...'" Bending his head, he kissed her softly.
Her arms wound around his neck.
After a long moment, he broke away. Her eyes fluttered open, her lips still parted.
Another moment passed as he looked into her wide blue eyes.
"Goodbye, Leonard," she whispered.
He stepped away, hands falling to his side. "Goodbye, Christine," he said.
Turning, he walked down the street, listening to her steps as she went up the path to her house.
When he looked back, she was standing on her porch, watching him go. And because his life was waiting for him somewhere else, he turned again and went.
END
The title is from Yeats' Ephemera:
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!
Full text of When You Are Old is here.
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel
Rating: 12+
Summary: High school life in a small town.
Word Count: ~4100
Notes: For wizbey, who asked for AU Len and Christine went to the same high school.
The best thing about living in a small town was that everyone knew you. Christine was never going to be popular, but when she started high school everyone already knew who she was. Knew she was smart. Knew she might occasionally share correct answers with a classmate in a pinch.
And knew she was responsible, which was why the school nurse deputized her as first aid attendant at football practices. Christine spent a lot of time sitting on the sidelines, doling out icepacks and Gatorade to hulking seniors and overenthusiastic cheerleaders.
And that was how she got invited to the senior grad party.
She was sitting on the bleachers next to the cheerleaders, watching the jocks crash into each other on the field in some drill or other, when Jimmy, pride of the town and star quarterback, came bounding over.
"Nyota!" he cried, landing in front of the beautiful squad captain with a flourish. "It's official. Party at my house after grad. You're coming, right?" He gestured with his arm to the rest of the cheerleaders. "All of you?"
Christine stifled a grin at the look on Nyota's face. Jimmy had been finding increasingly public ways to ask Nyota on a date, and refused to believe she was dating a college boy from the next town.
Glancing down, Christine made herself busy with the first aid kit to avoid looking like she wanted to be included in the invitation. In four years time she was going to go to her own senior grad party, hosted by whoever the quarterback would be that year, and that was fine.
Jimmy's pitch to Nyota continued. "C'mon, everyone's going to be there! You'll be there, right, Carol? Jocelyn? Tonia? Janice?"
Christine looked up to see all the other cheerleaders, down to fellow freshman Janice, all nodding and smiling, and Christine couldn't help but smile too at Nyota's expression.
"Even little Chris is going to come, right?" Jimmy turned the full force of his grin on Christine unexpectedly, and she couldn't help but blush.
"We'll see," Nyota said evenly, as if not going was still a real possibility, which everyone knew it wasn't.
"I'll take it," Jimmy said. "And all the rest of you girls as well-the party won't be a success without you!" Suddenly he was leaning down, inches from Christine's face. "And I mean it, little Chris. I know you're not the party type, but you'll have fun, I promise."
And with that, he was bounding back onto the field, and the chatter of the girls beside her rose to a new height.
"Are you going to go?" Janice was suddenly beside her.
"I don't know. Maybe for a while, but I have curfew."
"Who cares about curfew?" Tonia, one of the juniors interjected from higher up on the bleachers. "It's the senior grad party. Everyone should go!"
"I agree," said Janice, nodding. "You should go."
"Because you want to go and if I'm going, your parents will let you go too?"
Janice grinned and hugged her. "You read my mind!"
The worst thing about living in a small town was that everyone knew everyone else, and had since birth. Moving to a small town in the middle of your last year of high school was hell, and in a very real way Leonard was counting the days until he moved back out and went to college with his old friends.
But he was making the best of it in the meantime. Football being played year round in this podunk town meant that a defensive back position was available to a six-foot-tall athletic newcomer. And the kids weren't unfriendly, they just knew so much about each other that it was kind of creepy.
The quarterback, Jimmy, had taken a personal interest in him, for reasons passing understanding. When Leonard asked why Jimmy went out of his way to make sure he knew about every house party, every drunkfest in the woods, every cow-tipping expedition or whatever they did for fun here, Jimmy clapped him on the back and said, "Teamwork, Lenny! Teamwork!"
Which wasn't an answer, but podunk town or not, Leonard wasn't anti-fun, and was definitely going to the senior grad party. Jimmy's parents left as Leonard arrived with a wave and a final "Try not to wreck the place!" As soon as their car disappeared, kids started to arrive as if by magic, and the house was soon filled to the rafters with drunk teenagers.
It was about what Leonard expected. He wandered from room to room, nursing a coke because he was driving, greeting the people he knew but not really falling into conversation. He raised his eyebrows at the sight of two too-young girls curled up in the same chair, giggling over something.
Jimmy clapped him on the back "LenNY! How's it going?"
"Good party," said Leonard. "Why are there twelve-year-olds here?"
"Freshmen, Lenny! Freshmen! We owe it to the next generation, you know."
"To show them how to party?"
"How else will they learn? That reminds me!" Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. "Party games! Write your name down!"
Leonard did so, handing it back with some trepidation, and the Jimmy was off again, spinning around the room, collecting slips of paper and making people laugh. Sighing, Leonard tried not to think about the grad party that would be happening at his old school, and headed out to the porch for some fresh air.
Christine and Janice had arrived together, and because they were likely the only freshmen there, made the unspoken decision to watch what happened at the party rather than participate.
Janice had found a chair for them with a good view, and they were shamelessly spying.
"Look! Isn't that the Scottish exchange student?"
"The one who hangs around shop class all the time. Yes. And that's..."
Janice peered. "I can't see her face. Just the red hair."
"It is! Wasn't she dating Jimmy?"
"That was last month. She's moved on, Jimmy has definitely moved on..."
Christine giggled. "Jimmy always--"
"Always what?" Suddenly Jimmy was right in front of her, and she blushed hard.
"Um...throws a good party?" she offered.
"Nice save, little Chris." Jimmy flashed a grin. "And speaking of good parties, you two should be out there enjoying yourselves, not huddled up in a corner."
"Okay," she agreed. "We'll get out and talk to people."
Janice nodded her agreement, apparently tongue-tied.
"Liars, both of you," he said affectionately. "But Jimmy is here to fix that." He handed them each a small piece of paper. "Write your names down. We're doing party games."
Janice's eyes widened. "What kind of games?"
"The kind where Jimmy gets to kiss a lot of girls," Christine told her.
"Ouch!" Jimmy gave her a mock frown. "I'm not going to forget you said that, little Chris."
"Sorry, Jimmy," she said immediately.
His smile came back. "Too late, ladies." Snatching up the pieces of paper, he disappeared.
Janice nudged her and whispered in her ear. "I think Jimmy's going to kiss you."
"No!" Christine drew back, shocked. "No way. He wants to go out with Nyota."
"Maybe." Janice shrugged. "But I think he's going to make sure he kisses you during whatever this game is."
"Really?" Christine felt her face grow hot. She'd never bothered thinking about Jimmy that way; he was a senior, and popular, and so far out of her league that-
"Okay, ladies and gents!" Jimmy raised his voice to get the attention of the crowd. "The game is Seven Minutes In Heaven!"
There was a collective groan from everyone in the room.
"I know! I know your concerns. It's a kids' game."
The crowd murmured agreement.
"Plus some of you have already started without the closet."
There was definite laughter.
"But this is our last party together! Seniors, we are moving on! Heading for brighter things, and leaving our high school brethren who love us behind forever." Jimmy paused, as the seniors nodded. "And everyone else, this is your last chance to know what it's like to kiss us!"
There were some definite whoops and cheering then.
Christine rolled her eyes. "Only Jimmy could make a kissing game sound inspirational," she murmured.
Janice grinned. "You may just get to see how inspirational."
Christine blushed again and shut up.
"All right." Jimmy waved two hats. "This one has the girls' names in it, and this one has the guys. As host, I'll draw the first names, and then the winning girl and guy will each draw after that. Ready?"
"Yeah!" said the crowd.
"Okay. And the guy is-Monty!"
Silence.
Someone came up and murmured in Jimmy's ear.
"Apparently Monty did start without us." Jimmy paused until the hooting died down, then rummaged around in the hat again. "So let's go with...Lenny!"
"Aw, damn it, Jimmy!" came a voice from the back of the room.
"Come on, Lenny, be nice. There's a lady involved," Jimmy scolded. "Get up here."
"The new guy," Janice whispered.
Christine nodded in agreement. Tall, dark, frowning too much to see if he was actually good looking. Too quiet, kept to himself, not like Jimmy at all. Though now he was standing beside Jimmy, they looked like a matched pair-both six foot tall, one blond, one brunet. Day and night. Salt and Pepper. She giggled.
And nearly missed the glance Jimmy shot her, so quick she might have imagined it.
Jimmy went into the girls' hat. "And the lucky lady is...little Chris!"
Now he did look at her, and his smile was evil.
Christine blushed, her jaw dropping from the shock. Janice shoved her out of the chair they were sharing, forcing her to her feet, and she barely registered the look of disbelief on Lenny's face.
"See?" said Jimmy. "Freshman, senior...we're mixing it up already. The mudroom awaits. Here's your timer," he waved an old wind-up egg timer at them, "set for seven minutes, which you can take in with you, should you decide you need more time."
There were more whoops and hollering, which Christine barely noticed, as Jimmy's firm hand on her back was propelling her towards the back of the house.
And then she found herself in a quiet, darkened room with one window and a screen door, through which the moon and stars shone their light. With a young man who was holding an egg timer and scowling at her.
Leonard was vowing vengeance on Jimmy from the moment his name was called. But this? Being put in a closet with a-
"How old are you, kid?"
She scowled. "I'm fourteen. And don't call me kid. I'll be fifteen soon."
"Right, fifteen," he muttered.
"How old are you?" she demanded.
"Eighteen. I'll be nineteen soon," he mimicked.
She rolled her eyes. "And my name's Christine."
"Okay. My name's Leonard."
"I know."
Right. Of course. Time to cut your losses, he told himself. "Look, ki-Christine, I get the sense you don't want to be here anymore than I do, and I don't know what Jimmy's doing-"
"I teased him," said the ki-Christine.
"What?"
"I told him he was just playing this game so that he could kiss girls."
Leonard barked out a laugh. "That's true."
"And then I tried to apologize, and he said too late, and I thought that meant..." She broke off miserably.
He hesitated for a moment. Damn it, he was a football player, not a counsellor. "You wanted him to kiss you?"
"Yes," she said, suddenly defiant. "I did."
"You...like him?"
"Of course not." The scorn was back. "That would be stupid."
"Of course," Leonard agreed, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"But he's kissed lots of girls and I've never kissed anyone so if he kissed me he could do it really well, and maybe he could show me how to do it...too..."
"Ah."
"Shut up," she told him.
He stifled a laugh. She was a bright little thing, and seemed to be handling disappointment well. "You know," he ventured. "I've kissed lots of girls."
She shot him a look that spoke volumes. "I don't want to kiss you."
"Okay," he said equably. "Why not?"
"I don't even know you."
"But you know Jimmy?"
"Of course! We-"
Grew up together, Leonard finished in his head, while she started to recount some time when she was six and Jimmy was ten and someone fell off a bike while heading to a crick to catch frogs or some damn thing. Podunk town strikes again.
"You're not listening," she said.
"No, I'm not," he admitted. "You're talking about knowing him forever, and that's...great," he decided. "Great. But in your life you're going to meet lots of folks who are complete strangers, and you need to deal with them too."
Christine's brow furrowed, but she seemed to digest this.
"Kissing a friend is easy," Leonard told her. "Kissing a complete stranger, taking a chance that he could one day become a friend...that's the real challenge."
He waited, and she didn't disappoint. After about fifteen seconds, she nodded. "Okay. Kiss me."
"Are you sure?" he asked, moving in closer while surreptitiously edging the egg timer dial back a few notches with his thumb. He was going to need more than seven minutes for this.
"Yes." She nodded, then stared up at him, clearly at a loss.
"Okay," he said. "For this first time, you don't need to do anything. I'm just going to kiss you, okay?"
"Okay."
Her mouth was closed and her eyes were round in the moonlight as he leaned down, slowly, and touched his lips to hers. A bit of warm pressure, and then he lifted his head.
She blinked up at him.
"Was that okay?" he asked.
"Yes," she said slowly, "but..."
"Let's sit." He motioned to the bench on the back wall under the coat pegs, setting the egg timer down behind him. She went with him easily, but sat a good six inches away from him. "Now you kiss me, the same way."
He thought he saw understanding in her eyes. "Okay."
Stretching up, she pressed her lips to his the same way he'd done to her.
A few fireworks went off in his brain, but he did his best to ignore them.
When she started to pull away he cupped her cheek in his palm to stop her, and kissed her again, playing with her bottom lip. She was a quick study, and soon their mouths were seriously fusing together.
After a minute or two he lifted his head, registered the sound of their breathing, and said, "Tongues?"
"Yes," she said, and he proceeded to show her, step by step, how that was done, eventually getting to the point where she had really perfected a couple of slides and flicks that almost made him forget to keep pushing the egg timer dial backwards.
It was only when he realized his hands were sliding up to her breasts, unbidden, that he came back to himself. He was not about to go any further with a fourteen-year-old than he already had.
And so, with real regret, he dropped his hands to her waist and let the egg timer run down.
The shrill ring startled them both.
"Okay?" he asked.
She nodded. "I...yeah." After a moment, the egg timer still shrilling behind him, she stood up and turned on the overhead light.
He stood up too. "You're a very good kisser, Christine," he told her.
Even with her flushed cheeks, he could still see her redden further. "Thank you, Leonard," she said, in a tone that made him want to shut the light off and kiss her again, just so she wouldn't think about crying.
He started this, he reminded himself. It was up to him to finish it. "Now," he said, picking up the insistently ringing alarm. "Let's go make Jimmy pay."
She laughed at that, regrets chased away, at least temporarily, and followed him out of the room while he waved the alarm at the crowd and bellowed, "Jimmy! That was definitely not set for seven minutes!"
Christine was glad he made her laugh. It was just practice kissing; it wasn't supposed to mean anything, but while it was happening it felt like it did.
She filed that information away for further study later and followed him back out to the crowd, where enough people immediately began laughing at Jimmy's protests of innocence that no one was paying attention to her.
"All right, all right," Jimmy said, shoving the two hats of names at Leonard. "Time for you two to pick."
"Everyone ready for the next round?" Leonard said, handing one of the hats to Christine, then digging into his.
The cheer went up, and he pulled out a name. "And the winner is...Jimmy!" He waved the paper around as if to display it to the crowd, but when Jimmy made a lunge to grab it, he dropped it back in the hat.
Christine laughed at Jimmy's expression, not least because the glimpse she'd caught of the name looked like Gary or Garret or something beginning with G.
Leonard winked at her, and she rummaged in her hat. "And for the girls, the winner is..."
She hesitated, reading the name, looked up and somehow caught Nyota's gaze. Nyota was nice; Christine wouldn't do that to her. Besides, she owed Jimmy some payback. So she said the first name that came to her head.
"Janice!"
She did the same thing Leonard had, flashing the paper at the crowd too quick for anyone to read, then dropping it back in the hat.
Leonard was looking down at her in admiration, and Jimmy was shaking his head. "I thought we were friends, little Chris."
"I'm Janice's friend too," she said pertly.
Jimmy gave a surprised laugh at that.
"And I'm setting the timer this time," said Leonard.
Janice made her way nervously towards them and Christine leaned in. "Tell me everything," she whispered, and Janice giggled.
Christine grinned at the look Jimmy shot her over Janice's head.
And then the two of them were gone, and the crowd had ceased caring and gone back to their own conversations, and Christine was standing awkwardly next to Leonard.
"Want a drink?" he asked.
"Um..." As she was trying to decide what that meant and whether he just was being polite or whether he actually wanted to spend more time with her, she caught sight of the clock on the mantel. "It's 8:30? I need to be home by nine."
"I'll walk you," Leonard said.
She was about to say he didn't need to, but surprised herself by saying "Okay," instead.
Halfway down the porch steps, she realized she was abandoning Janice. "Wait," she said, and Leonard stopped.
Heading back inside, she found Nyota. "Could you tell Janice I've gone home?"
Nyota smiled. "Don't worry, I'll make sure she gets home safe. Thanks, Chris."
Leonard wasn't sure why he'd volunteered to walk Christine home. She hadn't expected him to-it was still early, and one of the good things about podunk small towns was that it was safe for young girls to walk the streets after dark.
And now he was stuck making conversation with her for the next twenty minutes.
"So," he said as they headed out into the summer night, the sound of the party fading and the hum of the cicadas blossoming in its place. "You've lived here all your life?"
"Yes," said Christine. "Born and raised. You moved here after Christmas. How do you like it?"
"It's okay," he said.
She glanced over at him. "You had friends at your old school? Do you miss them?"
"Yes," he admitted. "But I'll see them again soon. A couple of them, their families have places on the beach near Savannah, so I'll be heading there next week. Probably stay there for the summer, and then head straight to U Miss in the fall."
"So you won't be back," Christine said.
"No," he said. After a few seconds of silence, he realized she was probably trying to find out if he was boyfriend material; what with their solid half hour of making out, she probably was jumping to conclusions.
"So," he began, wracking his brain for a safe topic of conversation. "How'd you end up being the first aid attendant?"
She shrugged. "The school nurse likes me for some reason. Plus I actually studied when I took the first aid certification. It just happened."
"You thinking of going into medicine?" he asked.
Another shrug. "I like science, but I don't know. What about you?"
"I'm going to be a doctor. Like my dad."
"Cool," she said.
They turned a corner and Christine skipped a few yards ahead. "This is my house," she said.
"Okay," he said. "I enjoyed meeting you, Christine."
"I enjoyed meeting you too," she said, politely. "I don't think we'll see each other again..."
"Probably not," he agreed. Then smiled down at her. "But thank you for letting me be your first kiss."
She scowled in a way that was becoming familiar. "That wasn't my first kiss."
"Oh?" he said. "Sorry, I didn't-"
"That was just practice. It didn't count."
He couldn't help but grin. "But we did-"
"Not really." She wrinkled her nose. "That was just Jimmy and the game. My first kiss will happen after my first date, with a boy who actually likes me, and you are not going to ruin that for me by blabbing all over school, will you, Leonard."
Her gaze was so steely and determined by the end of that little speech that he had to work to not laugh out loud.
"Okay," he said. "But just so I know. Does this boy have a name?"
"Not yet." Her chin jutted up. "I'm considering my options."
And heaven help whoever you settle on, he thought. Out loud, he said, "So it could be, for instance, some boy you meet at a party, who walks you home in time for curfew, even though he doesn't really have to..."
Her eyes narrowed. "A boy who is about to leave for college and won't ever return?"
"Could be," he admitted.
"I don't think I want that," she said.
"It would be romantic, though," he said. "Tragic, sad, but romantic."
"Romantic." She was clearly skeptical.
"Yeah. Like, uh, The Notebook."
"They end up married in The Notebook."
"They do?"
She suddenly giggled. "You've never seen The Notebook?"
"I'm a guy." He shrugged and grinned. "Okay, doomed romance. Um. Romeo and...no, bad example."
She giggled again. "How about 'When you are old and gray...'"
"'...and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire'?" Thank god for AP English. "That works." He frowned. "How do you know Yeats?"
"All teenage girls read love poems," she told him.
"All of you?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yes," she said. "All of us. How do you know him?"
"All teenage boys read love poems," he said.
"Really?"
"Yes. To pick up teenage girls."
She punched his arm, laughing, and he grabbed her hand to bring it to his mouth for a light kiss. "I can do romance," he said.
"Can you?" she asked, but clearly having her hand kissed had caused some of her skepticism to fade.
He reached out and brushed back a lock of blonde hair. "'Dream of the soft look your eyes had once,'" his fingertips caressed her temple, "'and of their shadows deep...'"
"Oh," she breathed out, probably unaware that she was leaning into his touch as he traced the side of her cheek.
"'How many loved your moments of glad grace...'" Drawing her in with an arm around her waist, he continued. "'And loved your beauty with love false or true...'"
His thumb rested at the corner of her mouth and her lips parted and he was caught, as surely as she was.
"'But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you...'" Bending his head, he kissed her softly.
Her arms wound around his neck.
After a long moment, he broke away. Her eyes fluttered open, her lips still parted.
Another moment passed as he looked into her wide blue eyes.
"Goodbye, Leonard," she whispered.
He stepped away, hands falling to his side. "Goodbye, Christine," he said.
Turning, he walked down the street, listening to her steps as she went up the path to her house.
When he looked back, she was standing on her porch, watching him go. And because his life was waiting for him somewhere else, he turned again and went.
END
The title is from Yeats' Ephemera:
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!
Full text of When You Are Old is here.