Page 16 of Twice
“All right,” she answered.
I edged closer, but since this was before our eyes adjusted, I banged my forehead into her ear, then my nose into hers.
“Ow,” she said.
“Ow” is not a good prelude to a kiss, especially your first, but that’s what it was for me. I pushed my face forward until my mouth found the area beneath her nostrils. I pressed on it the way a kid presses his lips on a frosted window. She pressed back, keeping her mouth tightly closed to avoid me feeling her braces. We did this twice. It was dry and unmemorable. Then we separated and spent the rest of the seven minutes whispering small talk. When we exited, I guess it looked as if we had done something, because all Stewie yelled out was, “Next!”
An hour later, I went home. I tiptoed through the back door to find my father waiting for me, his arms crossed. He grounded me for a month. I trudged upstairs, feeling numb.
Later, as I lay in bed staring out the window, I decided that making out was definitely not worth it. I was too young to understand the real reason for my gloom—that my first kiss had only come on a second try. Years later, I would wish I had saved that moment for someone else.
Nassau
“Wait, let me guess,” LaPorta said. “Gianna Rule. She’s the ‘someone else’ you’re talking about?”
“That’s right.”
“When do we get to her part?”
“Soon.”
LaPorta rocked his chair up on its rear legs. “Listen, pal. I know where all this is going. You’re going to tell me you used your little ‘power’ to travel back before each spin of the roulette wheel and play the winning number.”
“Not exactly,” Alfie said.
“Not exactly, huh? You think you’re pretty smart.”
“Actually, my story is one of great foolishness.”
LaPorta dropped his chair down with a bang.
“Cut the crap, Shakespeare. You think I haven’t noticed that, in your little fantasy here, you haven’t once mentioned money? If I actually believed you could do what you’re saying—which I don’t—that’s the first thing anyone would have done.”
“My mother warned me against that, remember?”
“You could have bought a lottery ticket.”
“I was too young.”
“Go to the racetrack.”
“I was just a kid. How would I go to a racetrack?”
LaPorta smirked. “We obviously didn’t grow up in the same neighborhood.”
He dug out another Life Saver and popped it into his mouth. He looked at his phone. Still no message.
“For me,” he said, leaning back, “it was Spin the Bottle.”
“What was?”
“My first kiss. A bunch of us, maybe ten or eleven years old, sitting in a circle. I got lucky. I spun and landed on Nancy Killington, the best-looking girl in the fifth grade. Planted a huge smooch on her.”
He cocked his head. “It’s more fun to kiss someone when they’re good-looking, right?”
Alfie thought for a moment.
“Not always,” he said.
