Serpentine

by Napier, Barry

  He carefully checked the clock on his iPhone as he neared the place they had planned to meet. It was five minutes after three, which meant he was late. He hoped she hadn’t given up on him. Or, worse yet, what if she had decided to not meet him after all? What if he had sort of creeped her out with his boldness?

  And where had that boldness come from, anyway? He was never confident around girls and never knew what to say in those awkward situations when he knew he was expected to say something.

  But Valerie had pulled it out of him and—

  When he saw her standing in the spot where he had wrecked his bike the day before, he couldn’t keep the smile from stretching across his face. She was standing in the center of the dirt road, giving him a sarcastic slow down gesture. And behind that gesture was a smile that made his entire body feel as if it had been flushed with heat.

  Joe came to a stop directly beside her. He did everything he could to not stare her down like some crazed stalker…but he wasn’t doing a very good job.

  “I thought I’d make sure you came to a safe stop,” she said. “I don’t know that I could watch another ugly spill like yesterday.”

  “You’re hilarious,” Joe said.

  “I know.”

  Joe dismounted from his bike, leaning against it as they stood in the center of the road. The shade of the overhanging trees kept the sunlight mostly away, creating a dusk-like atmosphere. Joe wasn’t quite sure why, but it felt perfect for their little rendezvous.

  “How was skiing?” he asked. He noted the way her hair was still slightly wet, presumably from spending time out on the water.

  “It was fun,” she said. “I’m not very good at it, though. I stayed up for about twenty seconds one time but bailed hard. How about you? You ever ski?”

  “No.”

  “You should. It’s fun.”

  “I can barely swim, much less ski,” Joe said.

  “Really? You don’t swim, you don’t ski and let’s face it…you aren’t very good at riding a bike. What do you do in New York?”

  “Not much. I listen to music a lot. My folks will sometimes let me go to indie shows if it’s an all-ages venue and I’ve been getting good grades. I also play football with some friends every now and then.”

  Valerie had started to walk as Joe spoke. He followed her as she led him further down Kerr Lane. He pushed his bike along, making sure to keep it on his left side so that he could walk directly beside her.

  “What kind of music are you into?” she asked.

  “Everything. But mostly metal. How about you? What do you do for fun?”

  “Hold on one second,” she said. She looked ahead and Joe realized that they were coming up on the driveway of the cabin that Valerie and her father were staying in.

  “What is it?” Joe asked.

  “I don’t want Dad seeing you. I’m pretty sure he’s half-drunk in front of the TV watching the game, but still…can’t be too careful.”

  She stared at the house for a few moments and then started walking further down the road. She quickened her pace though, as if expecting her father to come out of the front door at any moment.

  “It’s safe,” she said, waving Joe on. “Come on.”

  Joe followed, still pushing his bike along. When the cabin was behind them, Valerie slowed down, waiting for Joe to catch up.

  “Is your dad really that strict?” Joe asked.

  “Sometimes. It got worse when mom died. And now that there are boys calling the house for me sometimes, he gets really protective.”

  “You have boys calling your house?” Joe asked. The mere thought of it was like razorblades in his gut.

  “Some,” she said. “But nothing like that. No boyfriends. Why? You jealous?”

  Joe only shrugged, caught off guard for the first time. He was sure he was blushing, so he looked down to the ground.

  “What do you want to do?” Valerie asked.

  “I don’t know. What is there to do?”

  “I know this place pretty well,” she said. “Like I told you yesterday…me and Dad come here a lot. I can show you some secret places I’ve found.”

  “Like what?”

  She gave him the same smile she’d shown him when giving him the slow-down gesture; it was a smile that Joe was coming to find was a weakness of his. It was like some weird Achilles heel that he had no guard against.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  “I hardly know you,” he said.

  “That’s now what I asked.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That hurts.”

  “Sure,” Joe said with a shrug. “I guess I trust you. Why do you ask?”

  “Just come with me. I want to show you something cool.”

  “I have to be back at the house by five o’ clock.”

  “That’s plenty of time,” Valerie said. “I should be back by then, anyway. Dad will start to freak out if I’m gone for too long, especially if he keeps drinking.”

  “Then lead the way,” Joe said.

  They walked further down Kerr Lane, the road getting a bit rougher the further down they went. Joe started to regret bringing his stupid bike. Having to push it meant having his hands occupied. He wondered what it might be like to hold Valerie’s hand. He wondered what she would do if he reached out and took it. Of course, it was a moot point because he had the damn bike to push along.

  When they had walked a quarter of a mile or so away from Valerie’s cabin, Valerie stepped off of the road and into the tree line. Ahead of her, the woods were relatively thin. The lake peeked through like a muddy promise through the trees. She started down that way, looking back over her shoulder to see if Joe was following along.

  “Where are you going?” Joe asked.

  “There’s a trail down here,” she said. “It’s pretty short. Come on.”

  Joe didn’t hesitate. He followed her into the woods, finally resting his bike on the ground (the kickstand long ago having fallen off) among leaves and other woodland debris.

  As Joe followed Valerie into the woods, he was amazed at how different the environment seemed. Everything felt bigger, and the scents of the woods were thicker and somehow more alive. And above all, Valerie seemed more real. The road that led back to their cabins and their individual lives was behind them now. Here in the woods, there was just the two of them and that made Joe feel profoundly happy.

  He walked close behind her and could smell some sort of lotion mingling with the very earthy combination of dirt and fish that seemed to emanate from the lake. He followed her footsteps as she merged onto a thin footpath that wound down a hill. Sitting at the bottom of the hill was an old wooden building. It was incredibly small and the roof looked like it might fall in at any moment.

  “See?” she said, pointing happily to the building.

  “This is one of your surprises?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said, as if he were an idiot for not instantly seeing the charm of the place.

  He walked down to the building with her and tried to find something remarkable about it. The roof had a hole in it on the right side and the wall beneath it was buckled and bowed a bit. A doorway sat on the other side of the small shed-like building. A door sat crooked in the frame, the hinges so rusted they had turned completely brown. The door was partially open, revealing a dusty and neglected interior.

  “What is it?” Joe asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, stepping up behind him. “I think it must have been like a shed for fishermen or something.”

  She walked by him, her back brushing his arm as he did so. She walked inside the building, pushing the door open a bit more as she entered. Joe watched as the dust motes floated up and caught the murky sunlight that came in through the doorway. Inside, the floor was rotten in most places, revealing packed dirt and rotted wooden boards underneath.

  “This is what my mother would call a death trap,” Joe said.

  “There was a big black snake in here last summer,
” Valerie said. “I scared it away with a stick.”

  “And you come out here why?”

  “Not the interior design, that’s for sure,” Valerie said.

  Joe looked around the place. There was an old bench attached to the left wall, battered and worn. Along the front wall, there was what looked to have once been an old rack of some sort. An old neglected hammer hung from the wooden frame, along with a stripped fishing pole and an ancient-looking pitchfork. Old fishing line rested on the floor beneath it, tangled and forgotten.

  Valerie walked out of the building as Joe looked around, again passing close enough by Joe so that they brushed against one another. Back outside, she headed around the dilapidated right side of the building. Joe followed dutifully behind her and saw a severe dip in the land. Several feet ahead of them and resting at the bottom the hill was a muddy bank and two old boats. One looked like an old canoe and the other was a basic cheap aluminum fishing boat. Neither of the boats looked like they had been used within the century. Beyond these boats, the muddy bank became muddy water that eventually joined with the not-quite-as-muddy lake.

  “I took one of those boats out last week,” she said. “But I almost didn’t make it back. There was only one oar inside of it and I suck at rowing. It’s pretty hard to steer with one oar. Still, it was fun.”

  She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something. He looked back at her for a solid three seconds, their eyes locked awkwardly, before he understood what she was getting at. She was asking him if he wanted to go out on the water with her in one of those rickety boats.

  “That might not be such a good idea,” he said.

  “Scared?” she asked, her tone far too disappointed. “I mean, since you can’t really swim and all.”

  “No, I’m not scared,” he said. “I’m just not very coordinated, and if we’re supposed to be back by five o’ clock…”

  “Good thinking,” Valerie said. Still, she looked out to the boats longingly.

  “What else do you do when you’re not chasing snakes away or going out on the lake in the world’s oldest boats?” Joe asked.

  “Nothing much. I just walk around the woods, checking out the people on vacation. I especially like to watch them wreck their bikes.”

  “Funny.”

  They were standing two feet apart, Joe’s posture as rigid as the trees around them. Valerie was swinging her arms nonchalantly, looking out to the lake. Joe wasn’t sure, but he thought something was bothering her. She had a look in her eyes that his mother often got after his folks had a particularly heated argument. He wondered if Valerie’s look had to do with her dad. Whenever she mentioned him, there seemed to be anger and annoyance in her voice.

  “So what else do you do?” Joe asked. “For fun, I mean. I asked you before and you didn’t answer because we were running by your cabin.”

  The confidence that he had managed to dredge up the day before was nowhere to be found now. He was very aware that this girl had some sort of hold on him even though he barely knew her. It was an uncomfortable thing to realize and it made his heart feel like it was boxing his tonsils. Despite that, it was also amazing in a way he had never expected.

  “Oh. Well. I draw a lot,” she said. “I don’t think I’m good but my dad thinks so. He says I get it from my mom. He swiped one of my pictures and sent it to some contest earlier this year.”

  “Did you win?”

  “Third place. Twenty-five bucks.”

  “Nice. Is that what you want to do for a job?”

  “I’m not sure. What about you? What do you want to do after school?”

  “No idea. I’d love to be in a band, but the chances of that are slim to none.”

  “Do you like music because your dad does it for a living?”

  The question was so simple and direct that it caught him off guard. He’d considered this before, usually when he’d sit in the living room in their apartment and watch his dad tinkering with a keyboard. He would never tell his father, but he loved to watch the man work. When an idea hit him and he was able to execute it, there was little in the world that rivaled the joy Joe felt in seeing his father so focused and excited.

  “I guess,” he answered. “But I don’t want to do the kind of music he does…slow boring stuff for movies.” This actually wasn’t true at all, but he thought it would probably make him look slightly more attractive to Valerie. He had no idea why and wished he hadn’t have said it once it was out of his mouth.

  The conversation went on like this for another twenty minutes, the two of them passing innocent and generic questions back and forth. They did nothing more than walk slow circles around the dilapidated little shack. On a few occasions, Joe looked out to the small boats along the shore and wished he had have taken her up on her offer.

  Somehow, five o’ clock snuck up on them. Joe had set an alarm on his phone and when it buzzed in his pocket, he jumped a bit. He and Valerie were sitting on a relatively clear spot on the ground several yards away from where the muddy water started to lap at the ground. The old boats bobbed there lazily, as if trying to lure them in.

  As Joe fished his phone out of his pocket, Valerie giggled. “Is that an alarm clock in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” she said.

  “That’s some weak humor,” Joe replied, killing the alarm.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But you’re turning red…”

  He looked to the ground, ashamed and somehow aroused at the fact that she had caught him blushing at her harmless innuendo.

  “It’s been fun,” Joe said. “But I’d like to see you again and if I don’t get home when I’m supposed to, I may be killed.”

  “That would be unfortunate,” Valerie said as they got to their feet and started back through the woods and towards Kerr Lane. “As for seeing me again…well, that might be tough. Dad and I are heading back home tomorrow. He has some rush job he has to do.”

  “When will you be back?” Joe asked, his heart suddenly sinking in his chest.

  “Probably tomorrow night. But you know, we can meet here then. Like after hours, late at night. You ever chased fireflies before?”

  “No.”

  “No surprise there, city boy,” she said with a smile. “Can you sneak out and meet me here?”

  “Yes,” he said without bothering to think through it.

  Joe knew that doing so would be risky. He hadn’t really looked the place over for appropriate spots to get in and out without his parents finding out.

  Of course, he hadn’t been expecting to meet Valerie, either.

  “What time?” he asked.

  “Midnight. Seems fitting.”

  “Sure,” Joe said, having no idea how he’d manage it.

  They came to the edge of the forest where Joe’s bike lay on the ground. He picked it up and watched Valerie go on ahead of him. She turned back to him to make sure he was coming and when she turned her back to him again, Joe allowed himself a sigh and a dumbfounded roll of the eyes.

  What the hell is going on? he wondered.

  He had no idea. A crush for sure, and certainly not love. But whatever this was, it was fast and somewhere in between those two categories. It made his stomach feel uneasy but was unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

  He’d kissed one girl before…on a dare at a lame party. It had been nice. It had been warm, quick, and flat. But still, it had been a kiss. Now, trying to imagine what it would be like to kiss Valerie, the whole idea of that dared kiss was laughable. The mere thought of kissing Valerie had him leaping on his bike with energy that was almost frantic.

  They made the short walk to her driveway without another word. He stopped short of the driveway so her father wouldn’t see him with her if he happened to be out in the yard or on the porch. Apparently, single dads were very protective of their daughters. Joe certainly didn’t want Valerie getting in trouble just because he was already busy setting a dreamlike sequence of events into motion that he hoped might happen tom
orrow night.

  Valerie gave him a slight wave and then started towards the cabin. “See you tomorrow night.”

  He returned the wave and said, “Yeah. Tomorrow night.”

  With that, he sped towards his cabin, suddenly happier than ever that his father had forced his family take this trip. Now if he could just hide his uncharacteristic giddiness from the rest of them, this might just be the best summer ever.

  THIRTEEN

  It was without a doubt the longest day in the history of Joe Evans’s life.

  He’d done everything he could to stay busy, hoping to make the day fly by, but nothing seemed to work. He swam with Mac, tinkered with one of his dad’s spare keyboards and even did some fishing off of the dock with his dad. The attempt at fishing had been laughably terrible, as neither of them knew what they were doing, but he’d actually had a lot of fun. He’d stuck his finger three times in trying to properly bait a hook and wore the little scar with pride. They’d caught two fish, both very small and of a variety that Google taught them was called a crappie.

  As the evening rolled on, he rode his bike up and down Kerr Lane and the adjoining Tucker Lane for what seemed like hours. He started to understand why Valerie enjoyed watching the tourists. They were extremely varied in the way they did just about everything. In one yard, Joe saw a mother hovering over her child in the yard, making sure the kid didn’t wander too far. Yet, in another yard, two young kids—neither older than seven, for sure—roamed freely while their parents sat on the porch. Some yards were quite neat while others were littered with water toys, coolers, and fishing paraphernalia. Some waved at him while he passed while others gave a distrusting look.

  After a while, seeing all of the vacationing families and locals along the lanes made him feel a little less special. It made him aware that he wasn’t as isolated out here as he thought. It also made him feel as if the secret rendezvous with Valerie wasn’t as private as he’d like it to be. Having had his fill of people-watching, he headed back to the Evans cabin, ready for dinner and wishing night would hurry up and get here already.

  By the time dinner was set on the table—grilled burgers, green beans, and his mom’s awesome homemade mac and cheese—Joe felt like he was going to burst with anticipation. There was some family time on the back porch that included a sing-along to his dad playing the acoustic guitar he used to sketch out the melodies to songs from time to time. Through it all, Joe found it hard to believe that he’d been such a spoiled little brat on the drive to the lake. It had been a long drive, sure…but he’d never even given it a chance.