"The Date from Hell"

Meeka’s Granny has only one kidney and it doesn’t work anymore. So every few hours Julie flicks on the dialysis machine. Meeka says it’s kind of like the machine goes to the toilet for Pearl. But peeing shouldn’t take four hours and leave a person exhausted. She is the sickest person I’ve ever known, but also one of the sweetest which makes me wonder about G-d’s judgment. There are plenty of people in the world who could do with a kidney problem, make them appreciate life and not be so mean. But not Pearl Jones. She’s already got that lesson down. She knows how to live with her whole heart, and not just bits and pieces of it.


“It was the most boring date I’ve ever had,” Meeka whispers to me. We’re lying on Pearl’s bed, waiting for her to wake up from the latest dialysis’ treatment.


“How many dates have you had?” I can already see myself as an old lady living alone with a bunch of cats. And I don’t even like cats.


“That was my first…” she says and suddenly I feel a world much better. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he was boring and weird—chopping his food into little pieces like that and keeping his head down the whole time, except to smile at me for a nanosecond. It was torture!” She lays her head back next to Pearl’s leg and sighs.


Funny how Seth’s eating habits and silence never bothered Meeka when we ate lunch every day in the cafeteria together. Maybe she hadn’t noticed with me there, keeping the conversation going. Or maybe she was just expecting him to change on their date. Either way, it doesn’t matter because the date is over and Seth no longer eats with us. He is back to eating with Naked Artist Boy and Animal at another table, far away from us.


“Did you kiss him?”


Meeka makes a face like she’s just sucked on a lemon, and shakes her head. “You know, I think there was this one point when he wanted to. We were just limin’ at the park, on one of those merry-go-round things, and he leaned into me. I did not want him to be my first kiss,” she sticks out her tongue and adds, “and I guess it showed on my face because he jumped up so fast—like there were firecrackers in his pants!”


She is writhing back and forth on Pearl’s bed, trying so hard not to let out her squeals and giggles. I don’t like that she can just admit she’s never kissed someone, like it is no big deal. Her honesty is bursting my bubble of French Kiss-pride. It hadn’t been easy to kiss Seth. But, I’d never considered not wanting to kiss as an option. It’s like being offered homemade cookies when you’ve already had dessert: you have to eat them, fresh from the oven like that, you just have to. It doesn’t matter that you’re stuffed. The point is to take it when you can. I’d been starving for a kiss because I’d assumed that never being kissed was a flaw to conceal from the world. But I see now that my logic is the part that’s flawed.


“He kissed me,” I finally whisper.


Meeka bolts up fast and stares at me, one eyebrow raised and the other one down. “Excuse me, Cowgirl?”


“He said he wanted to practice, and it happened so fast that I—are you mad?” I ask because Meeka’s eyes are suddenly huge. She claps a hand over her mouth and starts to shake.


“No, I’m not vexed, Cowgirl,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I’m laughing my boomsie off! That boy is crazy!”


“No, dat boy is a mama man,” Pearl says with her eyes still closed.


“Granny—how long have you been listening?” Meeka crawls her way up the bed to Pearl.


“What’s that?” I ask.


“Long enough, my child. Listen to me, dat boy you brought home—dat boy you kissed,” she says to me, “Dat boy is a homosexual! I see him with my own eyes. Someone’s got to tell it to him straight.” She opens her swollen arms to both of us. “My Meeka, your first date and it’s with a mama man.” She turns to face me. “And my child, your first kiss is with the same mama man.”