Kissing in America Read Online Free PDF Page A

and black boxes still remained somewhere on the ocean floor. Three major searches had been attempted over the last two years, and Fran and the other families lobbied for a fourth search to begin in the late spring. Three underwater robotic vehicles were going to search a new area of almost two thousand square miles. Without the black boxes, none of the theories of what caused the crash were ever proven. Fran was convinced that someday there would be proof.
    My mom had visited the site once and established a password (she used the same one for everything), and then she decided it was ridiculous. “They’re not talking about the lawsuit. They’re talking about their feelings . Why would anyone want to go on here and do that to themselves?” she asked.
    I wanted to do that to myself.
    I went on it sometimes at the laundromat, in the computer room at school, or at night after my mom was asleep. Other times I’d be waiting for the subway and I’d be thinking about Fran Gamuto and Nancy Johnson and Jill Bluelake and the others who posted. Some people had signatures that appeared after their names on every post:
    Fran (husband Frank, daughter Lisa, Seats 22C, 22D)
    Jill (Jacques Bluelake, 14A)
    Nancy Johnson (Adam, Robert, Adam Jr., 11C, D, E)
    I never posted myself but I loved lurking, reading what other people wrote. In the Wonderboob group sessions we went to after it happened, people were stunned and sometimes cautious and hesitant when they talked about their feelings. Online, everyone was more honest. One day, a year ago, Fran started a new thread. She asked what everyone was most afraid of. The responses came quickly.
    I drive 10 miles out of my way to avoid going by the airport.
    The depression. Wallowing. Sometimes I get stuck in this pit of grief and bad feelings and I don’t know how to get out of it.
    I always thought I had some control . . . exercise, drive safely, get checkups, wear a seat belt, and now I laugh that I ever thought it was that easy. I’m afraid maybe I’m marked for disaster. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
    It’s the guilt that gets me. I should never have let him go on that trip.
    I ran my finger down the screen of my Crapphone—it loaded each message slowly, as if it were clogged with sand—and I watched its reload symbol struggle to get unstuck until I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I read romances and ate cookies till my mom came home.
    The next Friday, Will asked: “Hey, where were you last week?”
    â€œOh—I was sick. A stomach thing.”
    â€œI had to meet with Mrs. Peech,” he whispered. “She’s got bad breath.”
    I needed to forget this crazy crush. I had to push it out of my mind, which I tried to do over the next month as we kept working on his essay. Each week I learned more about him: that his mom owned a bakery in Manhattan, and his dad was an artist and lived in LA now. He told me that his mom was black—her family from Saint Lucia—and his dad was Scottish and Italian. People could never guess what race Will was—black people guessed he was Latino. White people thought he was Jewish.
    One chilly fall afternoon, Will told me the story of how his dad came to New York last year for a gallery show, and Will agreed to meet him for the first time since he’d left. Will’s mom was okay with them getting together, but she wouldn’tsay his dad’s name. She called him Jerkface. “Jerkface called you,” she’d say. “Jerkface sent you a check.” Jerkface was getting remarried next summer to a woman who was twenty-seven. Will’s mom called her Mrs. Jerkface.
    My mom had met a guy herself a couple of weeks before. She’d been out with him twice. Apparently, she did have time for one thing besides work. “His name is Larry,” I told Will now. “He’s the first guy she’s gone out with since my dad. She won’t admit they go