I could almost understand why Manning shut down so many of our conversations when people were around, but we were alone now, away from everyone. I kicked a rock. Manning must’ve thought I tripped, because he reached out to take my arm. “What a surprise,” I said, pulling away. “Something you don’t want to talk about.”
I felt his eyes on me, but I refused to look up. “I talk to you about a lot of things, Lake. More than anyone else.”
“Liar.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” I muttered.
“You called me a liar,” he said. “You can’t say that’s nothing.” He waited, for what I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t going to apologize, because it was true. “I’m seeing a new side of you lately,” he said.
“How was your date with Tiffany?”
“Ah. That’s what this is about?”
“No. It’s just a question.”
“Date was good, thanks for asking.”
“Did you kiss?” It wasn’t my business, and I hadn’t planned to ask because I wasn’t sure what good it would do to know. But I had to. I wanted to hear it from him, not Tiffany, who exaggerated when it came to these things. At least, I was pretty sure she did.
“I told you yesterday,” he said, “that’s between your sister and me.”
I wiped my clammy palms on my jeans. I was nervous he’d admit they’d kissed. I was nervous he wouldn’t, leaving me to fill in the blanks. “So that’s a yes. You kissed. Maybe you did other stuff, too.”
“Lake,” he warned, an edge to his voice.
“I know you told Tiffany about your sister,” I blurted. “Why not me? She doesn’t even care. I do.”
He inhaled a loud breath. “That was private.”
“Sisters tell each other everything.”
“Do you talk to her about me? Does she know you and I spend time together like this?”
I closed my mouth, scolded. Of course I hadn’t told Tiffany about us. She’d just ruin it by calling me childish or teasing me for having a crush. He’d made his point. “No.”
“Good, and don’t,” he said. “That’d put an end to our friendship.”
I looked up at him, panic tightening my chest. “You’d end our friendship if I told Tiffany?”
“Not me, no.”
Somehow, I knew instinctively who he meant. Everyone who wasn’t us. “You’re not closer to Tiffany than you are to me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. You can’t be. It’s not possible.”
“Tiffany and I are friends in a different way than you and me, Lake. Our friendship—it progresses differently. It means something else.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Why not?” He waited, but I didn’t respond. “Would you rather I broke up with her?”
I opened my mouth to scream yes! But did I want that? Tiffany wouldn’t care too much—this was way more important to me than it was to her. That made it fair. “Would you?”
“Your sister’s more than meets the eye, but I think you know that. Maybe people don’t give her enough credit.”
I had thought the same thing more and more lately. As I got older, I began to wonder if Tiffany was as aimless and flighty as Dad made her out to be, or if she was that way because my parents didn’t understand how to push her. “I guess.” If Manning could see that, then he was getting to know a different Tiffany than most people. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Are you saying you like her?”
He scratched behind his neck and responded slowly, as if choosing his words. “I like Tiffany for a lot of reasons. But maybe there’s one thing about her that brings it all together. Like glue.”
“What thing?”
“It’s not something I can really put into words . . .” He looked over my head and around. “Let’s say it’s because she makes me laugh. If I break up with her, then I’d miss laughing. You know?”
I frowned. “No. Surely she isn’t the only person who makes you laugh.”
“But let’s say she was. Let’s say, me laughing while Tiffany wasn’t around would be . . . people wouldn’t understand it.”
“So you wouldn’t laugh at all? Because of what other people thought?”
“Part of me doesn’t think it’s appropriate to laugh, either, Lake.”
Appropriate—I’d heard that word from him before. Laughing wasn’t appropriate the way our friendship wasn’t. “I think I understand.”
“I didn’t tell you about my sister because I won’t ever lie to you.”
“What do you mean?”
He stopped walking when we reached a wooden fence running the perimeter of the camp pool. We weren’t really by the cabins anymore, which made me wonder if he’d brought me here on purpose. He looked up, his feet apart, hands in his jean pockets, forearms tense. I could tell he was thinking, his eyes distant, but about what, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’d asked too many questions, and he was about to send me back to my cabin.
“Can you hop it?” he asked.
I realized he wasn’t staring into the distance but at the pool. There were only two ways in—the gate on the other side, and through the locker room and showers. Both were locked at the end of each day. I had no idea if I could get over the enclosure, but I said, “Yes.”
Leaves crunched under Manning’s feet as he surveyed the area. He motioned me over to the fence and picked me up the way he’d hoisted me onto the wall the day we’d met. I straddled it, jumping over the side. Manning followed right after, landing heavily on the concrete deck. He brushed off his jeans. “No trees in here,” he said. “It’s one of the best places to see the stars.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked at the stars, really looked. There were too many to count, a paint-splatter of silver on indigo. At home, I barely noticed them anymore, but as kids, Mom had taught Tiffany and me the constellations. I pointed, drawing in the sky. “Little Dipper.”
“That’s the big one,” he said, moving closer to me. He stenciled out his own square. “It’s part of Ursa Major, which means Great Bear.”
I looked over at Manning, a bear of a man. My great bear. “Ursa Major,” I repeated.
He shifted his index finger over. “There’s the little one. You can tell by the North Star. My sister used to make the same mistake. Until she knew more than I did, that is.”
I could feel her there, a presence between us, and I understood that the reason we were here had to do with her. She was part of the side of him that lived in shadows—a secret, but not just any secret. One that belonged to Manning, one I wanted to keep for him. “You did this with her?”
“When our parents fought, I’d take Maddy—” He tripped on her name. As he recovered, I tried it out in my head. Maddy. “I’d take her out to the front lawn and make up stories about the constellations. I didn’t know shit, but she started reading books about them.” He swallowed. The emotion in his voice was new for me, and he’d cursed, which he never did in my presence. “Soon enough,” he continued, “she was the one telling me stories.”
“How old was she?”
“Only nine. When she died.”
I audibly sucked in air. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected him to say, but nine just sounded so young. It was the age of the girls in my cabin. I’d been nine seven years ago. Aside from a great aunt, I’d never known anyone who’d died. I couldn’t imagine my life without my sister. My childhood would’ve been completely different without Tiffany, especially if she’d disappeared in the middle of it. Poof. I tried to think of some way to express my sympathy, to make this moment easier on him. I couldn’t touch him, not that I’d know where or how. I’m sorry for your loss just felt like the worst thing I could possibly say.
Maybe talking about her life, instead of death, would help. “Will you tell me about the stars?” I asked.
I could feel his hurt from where I stood. I tugged on his arm and sat right there on the concrete. There was no grass in sight, just this and the poo
l. It seemed like a big deal for someone his size to sit on the ground, but he did. We both lay back, some distance between us.
“I don’t remember them all.” His voice was hushed. It could’ve been his grief, but I was pretty sure he kept his tone low in case anybody passed by. They wouldn’t know we were here unless they heard us. “It’s been a long time since I looked very hard at the sky,” he said.
I could feel my elbows and shoulder blades on the concrete. I wanted to hear about the stars, but I couldn’t stop trying to picture her. “What did she look like?”
“The opposite of you.”
“You told me once I remind you of her.”
“You do. She was smart and kind. Saw the best in people, always. She’s the only person who loved me as I am.”
Despite the balmy night, I got the chills. Not the only one, I wanted to say. I love you. But the thought of saying that aloud made my heart pound and shriveled my tongue. I wondered if I’d ever be able to admit it. Maybe he knew, though. Maybe that’s how he thought I was like her.
I inched my hand along the warm concrete, toward him.
“She had black hair, like me,” he said. “Dark eyes. We looked a lot alike, except you could tell there was a whole universe behind her eyes.”
Manning could be that way. As if he were living in two different worlds, sometimes only half-present in this one. “How old would she be now?”
“Seventeen. I can’t even picture it.”
I did the math. “You were fifteen?”
“Yes.”
Silence stretched between us. It didn’t seem right to ask how it happened. I wanted him to want me to know, to just tell me. To give me something he hadn’t given anyone else, especially not Tiffany. The longer we stared up at the sky, the more I realized he wouldn’t. And what did that mean? Did he not trust me?
Eventually, he pointed at the sky again. “There it is. I was trying to find the three stars that make up the Summer Triangle.”
I looked for the ones he was talking about. “Where?”
“It’s not a constellation, but three stars from other constellations. That brightest one, it’s the bottom. Altair. About a foot apart is Vega. Through the middle is the Milky Way. You see?”
I still couldn’t find them, but he sounded so hopeful, I didn’t want to ruin it. “I think so.”
“I can’t tell it the way Madison did, but it was her favorite story. There are different versions, but Altair and Vega represent lovers from different sides of a river—or the Milky Way. They married behind their parents’ backs and her father punished them by keeping them apart.”
“With the river?”
“Yes. They were only allowed to be together once a year, the seventh night of the seventh month. The Japanese have a whole festival in July. There was no bridge, so, as long as the night was clear and it wasn’t raining, birds would carry Vega across the river to Altair for that one night.”
Of all the stories Manning could’ve chosen, there must’ve been a reason he picked that one to tell me. I’d learned about star-crossed lovers in English class. Maybe that’s where the term came from. People would try to keep me and Manning apart because of our age difference, but we had this—the stars, the lovers, the night.
“What about the third star?”
“What?”
“You said it was a triangle.”
“Oh.” His eyes roamed the sky. “I don’t know.”
“So the story is about Altair and Vega. It isn’t really a triangle at all.”
He reached up to make three points. “They’re all there, Lake. Can’t move the stars.”
“But the other one, it has nothing to do with this, right?” He must’ve heard the panic in my voice. It was hard to miss. “It’s about Altair and Vega. Just them.”
He looked over at me. “Yes. It’s about them.”
My heart began to pound. Hope lived strongly in me, and I knew with just those words, the same was true for him. It was a promise. No matter what, the story would only ever be about us.
I brushed my knuckle against his to acknowledge what I couldn’t say. Was holding hands physical? What would Manning do if I put my skin on his and asked for what I wanted? If, like Tiffany, I used touch to get it? I got up on my elbow and looked down at him. My hair fell forward, a curtain around us.
“Lake,” he said—a plea? A warning? I couldn’t tell.
I looked at his mouth. I had dreamed of it, the things it couldn’t tell me, of his lips, which couldn’t kiss me. We were alone, finally. He had told me in so many words, one day, we would cross the river to each other.
I leaned down.
He put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “We can’t.”
He was telling me no. Again. Like everyone else, he thought he knew better than me. Couldn’t he see that wasn’t true? That some things were bigger than right and wrong, bigger than us? Hot tears pierced the backs of my eyes. “Why not?”
“That’s just the way it is.” He touched his hand to my cheek, and I leaned into his palm. “This will have to be enough.”
I shook my head. “I’m not a child, Manning.”
“I know you aren’t. But at your age, it can be hard to think past the moment. To consider consequences. The future.”
“All I do is consider my future.”
“And you’re going to do and be great things. You’ll fly far, Birdy. See places most of us never will.” He moved my hair behind my ear. “I’m counting on it.”
I didn’t want to fly without Manning. I was content to stay here on the ground with him, learning of the stars, but he sat up, forcing me to do the same. We got to our feet.
All at once, the dreaminess of the night wore off, leaving the shameful truth—I’d tried to kiss him, and he’d told me no. Yet he’d gotten “physical” with Tiffany. What did that mean? Could there possibly be anything bigger than my love for him, something big enough to swallow it?
My vision blurred with tears. I still hadn’t figured out the Summer Triangle. There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky—I just couldn’t find the stars.
Manning turned away from me and walked back to the fence.
It wasn’t fair. I’d seen him first. I’d had him first. But was I losing him?
Was I losing him to Tiffany?
19
Manning
Sunny, dusty days outside passed too fast. Spending a week in fresh air was exactly what I hadn’t known I’d needed. For the first time in years, I wasn’t surrounded by hardened men or straining my body so my mind wouldn’t wander too far down the wrong path. I felt like I was part of the living. The kids’ enthusiasm was exhausting and infectious. Tiffany had loosened up. Lake made me feel like a man again just for having someone to look out for.
I didn’t want it to end, but like all good things, it had to. We were leaving in the morning. Tonight, the counselors had thrown the campers a party at dinner, then sent anyone under twenty-one to bed early. Including Tiffany.
“But I’m practically twenty-one,” she’d argued with Gary.
“Aren’t you like nineteen?” he’d responded. “And even if you were twenty and three-hundred-and-sixty-four days, it wouldn’t matter. You’re underage.”
I’d walked her to her cabin while Kirk had dealt with ours. Her girls’d asked for a bedtime story, and Tiffany had pulled out a surprisingly good one. She’d told me why afterward—she’d just summarized the first three seasons of 90210.
After saying goodnight, I headed to the campfire Gary and the staff had made.
As I approached, Bucky dicked around on the guitar, plucking at random strings. Lexi, a lifeguard, passed me a Bud. All the chairs were taken, so I sat in the dirt by the fire.
“Welcome to the special adult party,” Gary said to me. “We do it every year on the last night. Tiffany’s not going to rat us out to her parents, is she?”
“Sutter don’t call the shots in that relationship,” Bucky said. “When you got a hot piece of ass lik
e her, you just do what she says.”
Fuck this guy. He’d been giving me shit all week. When I worked a job, I mostly kept to myself because there were always men like Bucky whose mouths were bigger than their muscles. My muscles were just big, a byproduct of being one of the younger guys in construction—the older ones were always making me do the toughest shit. I couldn’t take the kinda bait Bucky was tossing in front of me. My dad had a temper that could flip at any moment and I knew, deep down, that switch existed in me. “Don’t go there, man.”
“Or what?” Bucky asked.
I opened my beer. “You’re lucky there are kids around.”
Lexi threw a bottle cap at Bucky. “Stop. Seriously. You’re an ass.”
Gary squinted at me over the fire. I wasn’t so good at making friends, but he’d been good to me, giving me this job, making sure I was set all week. That was part of why I’d been on my best behavior. I planned to keep in touch, maybe even come back next year.
“Anybody know a good scary story?” Lexi asked.
“I got one,” Bucky said. “Once upon a time, we ran out of beer.”
“Bullshit,” someone said.
“There’s more back in the kitchen,” Gary said.
“Nah, there ain’t.” Bucky strummed the guitar and sang, “This is the l-a-a-a-st of it.”
Gary checked the cooler. “Fuck. Who the fuck’s been sneaking it out?”
Everybody looked away. I hadn’t drunk anything in a week, but if Tiffany had found herself some special punch our first night here, no doubt others had their ways of sniffing it out, too.
“Somebody’s gotta go replenish the stash,” Gary said. “The night just started. I’ve already had two, and with my job, if I get a DUI, I’m fucked.”
“None of us are sober,” Bucky pointed out, slowly turning his beady eyes on me. “Except Sutter.”
I hadn’t even taken a sip. Truth was, I didn’t want to do much more than have a beer, two max, and head to bed. The days here were long, hot, and grueling. But everyone looked at me, which didn’t leave me much choice. “I don’t have a car.”
“Take my truck.” Vern, a gray-haired wiry man who worked full-time as a janitor for the campground, shifted around to shove his hand in his pocket. “It’s about forty minutes to town and back.”
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