by Jen Doll
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Mom sent me to spend the night with you guys,” he says cheerfully, unrolling his bag right between me and Grant.
“Oh, did she?” I say.
“She called me a secret weapon,” he says, and gives me the most angelic smile in his arsenal.
“You’re a weapon, all right. That’s not so secret,” says Grant. “I see you took off the bungees?”
Jack nods seriously. “I was over it. My dad says every shtick has a use-by date.”
“You’re just in time,” says Doris. “We were about to start telling ghost stories.”
I raise my eyebrows at her, but then my brother cuddles up next to me in his sleeping bag, his soft brown hair against my shoulder, and I remember the water park and hug him.
“I’ll go first,” I say. “Once upon a time, there was a boy who was seven years old, and his name was Jack Wachowski, and he loved peanut butter cookies and video games. And one day a voice on his favorite video game asked him a question.”
“What did it ask?” says Jack.
“Can you stop getting so many crumbs on me, please?” I answer.
Jack starts giggling, and Doris and Grant groan.
“No judgments, please,” I say. “Unless you want your story to be judged, which, you’re next, Doris.”
We take turns telling tales that are increasingly ridiculous. Doris’s is about a ghost in a department store who likes trying on furs. Grant’s is about a football ghost that’s always kicking the football when no one else on the team expects it. Jack tells a story that’s not about a ghost at all but about an all-white hamster named Ghost, and then he asks Doris to tell him about her aunt Stella and all the things she and her lifeguard friends found in the wave pool, which Doris does. The rain is now falling lightly on the top of the tent, making a soothing pitter-patter. We hear fireworks going off in the distance, but no one feels like going back outside.
I look at my phone, and there’s a text from Mom; it says Love you! And the thing is, even if it was probably the least cool move in the world to send my little brother over to camp out with us, at the moment, I really don’t mind at all that she did. Pretty soon Jack has fallen asleep on my shoulder, and Grant’s conked out on top of his sleeping bag. I hear faint strains of music, so I guess National Velour has gone back on, but I don’t think we’re missing anything. I settle Jack back on his pillow and turn to see what Doris is up to.
“Whatcha doing?” I ask quietly.
“I’m just drawing,” she says, and passes her notebook over. It’s a sketch of the stockroom at Unclaimed, with the manatee sitting on top of the table, surveying everything. It’s so detailed, you can see items on the shelves. You can even see the different types of doughnuts in the box, and the purple leopard suitcase we found with nothing in it in the corner. Seated at the table, there’s Red and Heather and me and Grant and Byron and Cat and Nadine and Freddie.
“You are really talented,” I say.
“Putting stuff down in different ways—lists, pictures, whatever—helps me figure things out sometimes,” she says. “It’s a way to see things from above ground level.”
“Like you’re in a hot-air balloon,” I offer.
“Kind of! It’s a matter of perspective.” Doris looks over at Grant. “Do you think he’s OK?” she whispers. “Like, really OK?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “He seemed fine all night.”
“He seemed fine before he fainted, too,” she says. “I’m just worried there’s something more going on. He’s probably hit his head more times than he knows, playing football.”
“Not to mention the car accident.”
“We need to watch out for him. Make sure nothing more happens … and if it does, we should tell someone,” she says.
I nod, and she shakes her head. “Who would have ever thought I’d care so much about the well-being of Grant Collins?”
“Well, he’s our friend now,” I say. “For better or worse.”
“Speaking of friends,” says Doris, “I’m so glad I got to share your first balloon festival with you.”
“Me too,” I say.
“And there’s more fun tomorrow!” she says. “’Night, Nell.” She turns over in her sleeping bag and quickly falls asleep, but I stay up for a little bit longer, looking at her drawings by the light of my flashlight. I turn the pages of the notebook and find more pictures of the store. Grant Collins, toting a football across a green field, his eyes the color of the grass. A sea of hot-air balloons across the sky. A girl wearing a name tag that says MAYA, holding hands with a girl with a name tag that says HANNAH, a heart floating between them. A picture of a woman with her hands around a giant mason jar with a straw in it, her expression bright and expectant, as if she’s right in the middle of hearing a really good story from someone she loves. Underneath the picture it says STELLA. I stare at that one for a long time.
33
Doris
I bolt upright in my sleeping bag like I’ve heard a gunshot. It takes me a second to remember where I am, and then I wonder if I was just dreaming about fireworks. I look around. There’s Nell, snoring quietly, and Jack, who moved from his sleeping bag to hers at some point in the night and is cuddled up inside with her. We’re missing someone. Grant. Has he gone somewhere and gotten drunk again? Is he hanging out with his bad influences? The sun is barely peeping over the horizon, and the tent is full of the kind of pale light that comes after dawn. I check my phone. It’s only six a.m. Then I hear the noise, whatever it was that must have woken me up, again: a rattling, clunky noise, like the sound of someone shaking rocks in a box. I’m slightly reassured by the fact that Nell’s parents are close enough that they could definitely hear me scream—and scream I most definitely would. That’s one thing the waterslide incident has taught me: not to be silent.
I gather my courage and creep to the opening flap of the tent and zip it down a tiny bit, preparing to face off with who or whatever is outside. And there at the nearest picnic table eating a bowl of cereal from our rations, just as happy as can be, is Grant Collins.
I start to crawl out of the tent in my pajamas and bare feet; then I think better of it and put my shoes on. He doesn’t seem to notice me at all, so when I get close, I whisper, “Boo.”
Grant jumps out of his seat, yelps, and drops his metal camping bowl to the forest floor, hitting his toe with it. “DORIS.”
“Why are you awake?” I ask.
“Why does it always hurt so freaking bad when you drop something on your toe?” he answers, which isn’t an answer, but I empathize. “They’re so small, toes. Yet so FULL OF PAIN.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I say. “Well, I did mean to scare you, but I didn’t mean to foot-scare you. It was meant to be more of a fun scare.”
He grimaces and inspects the pile of cereal that’s fallen.
“Oops,” I say.
“Eh, that was just my first course,” he says. “I woke up starving. Do you think there’s any leftover potato salad?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Should we go creep around Nell’s parents’ tent and terrify them, too?”
“How about we go for a walk?” he suggests. “They’ll be awake when we get back, and they can feed us!”
“OK,” I say. “I’ll bring some of my mom’s brownies for the road.”
“Yum.” Grant reaches for my hand, and I take his and pretend to help him up. As he rises, he squeezes gently, which for some reason gives me chills that run up and down my back.
“Shall we?” he says, pointing to the trail off to the side of our campsite.
He’s got on shorts and a T-shirt, but I’m still in my pink shortie pajamas, which has me flashing back to that other babyish outfit, the Minnie Mouse swimsuit, and what happened next. I’m tempted to change, but it’s just Grant. Who do I need to impress? Plus, I want to get out of here before we wake anyone up. I grab a couple of brownies from Mom’s cooler while he slips on his shoes, an
d we walk quietly to the trail, eating and leaving crumbs behind like a teenage Hansel and Gretel.
“Why’d you get up so early?” I ask. “You didn’t go back out last night, did you? Do you feel OK?”
“Stop!” he says. “Seriously, don’t worry. I slept clean and pure and woke up when my stomach started growling. All that fresh air! I feel great.”
“Good,” I say.
“And … I couldn’t stop thinking about my dad,” he admits. “The balloon festival reminds me of when we used to come here, when I was little.”
“What did happen with your dad?” I ask. “If you want to talk about it?” I know his parents split when we were in elementary school and his father moved away, but I’ve never heard the whole story.
“Your typical midlife tragedy,” he says. “Dad fell for the nurse he worked with, Mom kicked him out, he got a better job at a hospital in South Carolina. Now they both have new lives, and their teenage son is left to figure himself out on his own. Badly, in my case.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure my parents wish they could trade me in for, like, a Chassie. They don’t get me at all. But I do know that they love me. I’m sure your dad loves you, too.”
“I don’t know,” says Grant. “If you leave people, do you love them?”
“Sometimes,” I tell him. “Sometimes you can’t help leaving.” I think about Aunt Stella. “You could call him, you know. Maybe talking about it would help. You should tell him how you feel.”
He makes a face. “Then I’d actually have to speak to him. Let’s not go too far.”
As we reach the road that leads to town, a strange sweeping noise comes from above. I think it’s a small, low-flying plane at first, or maybe some kind of kite. But no: A partially deflated hot-air balloon has come undone from its tether, and it’s been picked up by the wind and is bobbing along the treetops.
No one comes running after it. No one must know it’s gone. Except us.
“Quick!” I yell, pointing forward. “Follow that balloon!”
For a few hundred yards, we jog after the floating bit of cloth, which can’t possibly go too far; it’s not even fully inflated. But it’s a pretty windy day, and the gusts keep pushing it farther away from us. Its wicker basket eventually gets caught on some tall tree branches and the balloon is stuck, trailing out across the sky like a planted flag. I can make out some letters on it, a P and maybe an L.
Grant looks at me. “Have you ever found a hot-air balloon before?”
“Nope,” I say. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“How does someone lose an entire balloon?” he asks.
“People lose everything!” I tell him. “The more relevant question is, who do you think lost it? PL might be for Planned Parenthood. They had a balloon here last year, even though some folks in town tried to block them from attending.”
“We should tell someone we saw it,” says Grant. “Whoever’s it is, they’ll be wanting it back.”
I agree, and we turn back to the trail that will take us to where all the balloonists, and park security, are located.
On the way, we fall into comfortable silence. I’m wondering if we’ve ever sold a hot-air balloon at the store, and what we’d charge for one if we did. But Grant’s mind has traveled further.
“Do you remember hanging out in these woods when we were kids? All the exploring we did? Everything felt like such an adventure,” he says.
He’s right, when we were little—before the waterslide, way back in elementary school, we’d play here sometimes. That was when Chassie and I were still friends, kind of. Before Grant was a football star. I was always sandwiched between the two of them in Sunday school, our names an alphabetic chronicle that never changed: Collins, Dailey, Dunkirk. And even though they were a year older than I was, we were together a lot more than we were apart. Small towns are like that, at least before people grow up.
“I used to collect rocks that looked like they had faces,” I say. “And one time I found a puddle full of tiny baby frogs. They were smaller than my pinky finger.”
“I used to hunt for crawdads!” says Grant. “With the Benson brothers. We’d bring a pile of ’em back home, and our parents would pretend to cook them up. They’d really let them go in the creek and serve us hamburgers instead.”
“Sometimes I can’t wait to get out of here,” I say. “And sometimes I love this town so much. I mean, it’s a part of me. No matter what.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever leave,” says Grant. “Like, really leave. I don’t even know if I’ll go away for college at this point.”
“Do you want to?” I ask. “Leave?”
“I think so,” he says. “But wanting doesn’t change anything.”
“Wanting is the only way to change something!” I say. “If you want to, you will.”
We pass a tree that’s got a heart carved into it. Inside the heart, someone’s spray painted the initials GC and DD, which makes us laugh.
“Is that what you were doing while we were all sleeping?” I ask. “Ahem. You know you can tell me if you’re secretly in love with me.”
“I bet that stands for Garrett Carey and Daisy Duvall,” says Grant. “They were hot and heavy last year, until he went to Auburn and she went to Alabama. Now their families won’t speak to each another.”
He’s surely right, yet part of me longs for it to be my DD carved into that tree. Along with a GC for Grant Collins? Ugh, I think I’ve been listening to Nell talk about boyfriends and love too much. I pinch myself and remember what happened on the waterslide, and how Stella said never to get too attached. Falling for a guy in this town would derail all my plans. Falling for Grant Collins would be a downright disaster, for all sorts of reasons.
There’s a tent up ahead of us, and as we get closer, we see figures outside of it. It’s exactly who I don’t want to run into, right after Mrs. Stokes. It’s Chassie and Mac Ebling.
I glance at Grant, hoping this isn’t going to set him off. He looks calm. “Hey there,” he tells them. “You’re up early.”
“We still haven’t gone to sleep,” says Mac. “The party went all night. You know how it goes.”
“I do,” says Grant. “Or I used to, anyway.”
I look at Chassie. Her red lips and wavy hair and cheerleader physique are the same as always, but she’s holding one arm stiffly, like it hurts.
Grant notices. His face gets pinched.
Chassie looks from him to me, and back again. With her good arm she reaches around Mac’s waist and pulls him toward her, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
Without thinking, I grab Grant’s hand, and he squeezes mine. Again, shivers go up and down my spine. I think about how Nell kissed the Magic 8 Ball. Part of me suddenly, desperately wants to do the same thing, to Grant Collins.
Chassie frowns. “I’m going to sleep.” She glares at Mac and flounces into their tent. She reopens the entrance flap and shouts out, “Stop calling me, Grant. I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want to hear your voice on my voice mail, either!”
Grant looks pained, and Mac shrugs.
“Women,” he says. “Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without—”
“You should really get that written on a pillow,” I say, interrupting the inevitable cliché.
“You think?” He looks confused.
“Oh, definitely. Big money maker, pillows with aphorisms,” I say. “You could have an Etsy store.”
“Huh?”
“We better go,” says Grant.
I think I see Chassie watching us from the narrow open sliver of the tent.
“Report that balloon missing,” Grant adds, nudging me to move, and so I do.
* * *
After we alert a surprised group of rangers that a balloon has gone rogue, we head back to camp. Grant doesn’t seem to want to talk about what happened with Chassie, but he holds on to my hand the whole time, until we reach our tent. And
there, right before we unzip the flap to crawl inside, he takes my hand to his mouth and he kisses it.
“Thanks,” he whispers. I don’t know what to say back, so I just nod. My heart is going ninety miles an hour.
As soon as we’re inside—there’s really no way to quietly enter a tent—Jack’s eyes pop open in excitement and Nell squints at us. “Morning,” she says sleepily. Pretty soon Nell’s dad is banging around making blueberry pancakes on the kerosene stove. We’re heating up the casserole my mom sent with me, and we’re devouring everything like we haven’t eaten in days.
“It’s the perfect morning for a balloon ride,” says Mrs. Wachowski, remarking on the blue sky. The wind from earlier has died down, and last night’s storm has left us a gorgeous, sunny day. Grant and I tell everyone about the renegade balloon sighting we had that morning, and how park security is now trying to find its owners. We keep our other sighting, of Mac and Chassie, to ourselves—at least for now. As for the hand kissing, I need to think about that for a while before I share it with anyone else. Even Nell.
34
Grant
The balloon festival is already thronged with people when we arrive, Jack and Nell’s parents in tow. They’re looking around in wonder. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by the sight, no matter how many times you witness it. Doris has taken it upon herself to try to find the balloon’s owners; she’s asking everyone we see if they know anything about it and whether there’s a Planned Parenthood tent this year. All she gets are blank stares and shaking heads.
“Sorry, hon,” says one woman who sells sand you can swirl into glass bottles in different patterns. “But come back if you want to make your own keepsake of the festival; our beautiful sandcrafts will help you remember this moment forever!”
“You know what I’m going to have to remember forever is the word sandcrafts,” Doris tells us.
We pass the funnel cake vendor again, which elicits an involuntary mouthwatering reaction in me. We turn our heads to avoid the Mercy Church tent, and all of a sudden, there’s a voice coming at us, an old-fashioned country drawl. It belongs to an old guy wearing a gray uniform that looks like something out of the Civil War. He’s also sporting a military cap and a grizzled beard.
