by Cat Jordan
“Strawberry jam.”
He sneered. “You couldn’t use grape like a normal human being?”
“I made this jam. Well, Emma and I made it. She had a Brownie project.”
Lee’s eyes lit up. “Ooh! Did you bring brownies?”
“No,” I said with a smile.
He shook his head as he licked some of the jam that squished through the slices of whole-grain bread. “Not bad for an amateur.” He swallowed the whole thing in about four bites. “Got any water?”
I rummaged around in my backpack. “Somewhere . . .”
“Never mind.” Leaning his head out the door of the fort, he stuck out his tongue to catch rain in his mouth. He was nearly off the edge, holding on to nothing and in danger of sliding off and down. Way down.
I grabbed hold of his elbows and pulled him in. He toppled backward and collapsed onto my feet, his face grinning up at me, inches from mine. “What the hell, Middie?”
I let him drop him on the floor. “Acid rain,” I teased.
“Ha! Good one!” he said, pointing a finger at me as he sat up again. “You’re thinking of my health, and that’s funny.”
I had to duck a little as I investigated the tree fort, seeing as how it was originally built to accommodate young boys. It was pretty bare bones as far as “man caves” go. Shaky Wi-Fi signal. No electricity, of course. And that hole? Directly in the center of the fort. Each time I passed under it, I got a shower of water on my hair.
“Hey, what is that?” I heard Lee ask. When I glanced over at him, I saw him jut his chin in the direction of a child-size table, a relic from the boys’ youth. “Underneath. There’s a stack of something.”
I lifted the small table up, uncovering a hidden pile of comic books. I picked up a handful of them and fanned them toward Lee. “Spider-Man. Superman. Richie Rich?”
Lee clapped his hands. “Yes! Bring ’em here!” He was next to the open door again but this time kept his feet inside. He saw me hesitate and then sighed. “There is no light over there. How can we read them?”
“We’re reading them?”
“What else do you do in a tree fort? You eat sandwiches and read comics.”
Lee took the stack from me as I sat down and then, with a wicked grin, held up a copy of Playboy. “I know what I’m reading tonight.”
Oh yes, I blushed—fifty shades of red. “Lee!”
“It was between Superman and Spider-Man.” He held up the other comic books to show me. “Boys will be boys. You want me to read you one of the fascinating and informative articles?”
“Uh, no. Just keep it to yourself.” I quickly looked away.
“Have you never seen porn before?” He sounded incredulous.
“I have two sisters. When would I see Playboy?”
“Well, there’s Nate.”
“Nate did not look at porn.”
Lee threw back his head and laughed so loud and long that I was afraid we’d be caught by the neighbor who owned this tree. “Oh yeah, right. Nate didn’t look at porn.” He paged through the magazine, his eyes lingering on every photograph. “Trust me, every guy looks at porn.”
I refused to let him get to me, so I picked up a Superman comic and thumbed through it. I had to shift closer to Lee in order to share the beam of moonlight coming through the open door of the tree fort, but I avoided the magazine in his hands. “Nate didn’t. And if he did, I don’t need to know that.”
“Aw, come on. Naked bodies are beautiful.” I squirmed like a kid; I couldn’t help it—and Lee reveled in my discomfort, ostentatiously flipping the pages of the glossy magazine and making little moaning sounds. “Oh yeah, that’s nice,” he said to the airbrushed models. “Very, very nice.” He opened the centerfold and turned the magazine sideways. “Now, those can’t be real, can they?” He leaned next to me and thrust the centerfold in my face. “What do you think? Real or fake?”
I shut my eyes. “Stop it!”
“What do you think, honestly? I want a woman’s opinion.”
I felt a smile on my lips. In spite of myself, Lee could make me laugh. “I have no opinion. I don’t know.”
“They’re awfully . . . full?” he went on. “Kind of puffy, which makes them look really weird.” He tsked. “I don’t know. Why would a pretty girl do that? The bigger the better, I suppose some guys like that. Not me. I like the au naturel look. No enhancements needed. If they’re flat, they’re flat, you know?”
“Oh my god, Lee, stop talking about breasts!” My hand flew to my mouth, covering my giggles.
Lee feigned shock. “Breasts? How crass of you, Meredith. I’m talking about her lips. It looks like she’s had collagen injections.”
I tore the magazine from his hands and was about to fling it away when I stopped and looked at the model. She did have puffy lips, it was true, and they didn’t look natural. “You’re right,” I conceded. “They do look enhanced.”
Lee held up his hands. “See? That’s all I was talking about.” Then he narrowed his gaze. “Now what about her breasts—”
“Lee! Stop!” This time I did toss aside the magazine. It landed back underneath the tiny table.
“Shhh!” He placed a finger to his lips. “Do you want to get us kicked out?” He rolled back on his butt, doing awkward somersaults until he landed in a corner of the tree fort. Only two of the corners were dry. He sat in one and I took the other. The distance between us was about eight feet; if we each stretched our legs in front of us, our toes would touch. I pulled my knees up to my chest and listened to the rain falling lightly on the leaves. According to my phone, it was nearly midnight. I’d managed to sneak out the back staircase near my room just after my parents went to bed.
“First night in a tree fort?” Lee asked quietly. When I nodded yes, he glanced around him, up at the ceiling, at the walls and door. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could see a smile tease out dimples in his cheeks. I’d never noticed them before. “Not so bad, huh?”
“A little cold, but yeah, not bad.” I hugged my legs tighter and rested my chin between my knees. I felt my eyes begin to close but each time I shivered, I woke up again. At least the rain had stopped.
“You tired?”
“Mm-hmm. Yeah.”
“I’ll read you a story.”
I heard a rustle of paper and I started to protest. “No porn, please.”
His laugh was light. “No porn.” He cleared his throat and adopted a Serious Broadcaster’s voice. “When last we saw Superman, he was being crushed by Lex Luthor in outer space.” Then he became Lee again. “In this first panel, Superman’s squished between two asteroids the size of houses and he’s gritting his teeth like he’s constipated.”
“What . . . !”
His eyes, meeting mine, danced merrily. “I gotta say, whenever Superman’s in trouble, he looks like he’s shitting bricks.”
“Oh my god, Lee,” I said with a laugh. I felt my cheeks warm with a blush again, although thankfully not as much as with the Playboy magazine.
“I can stop if you want,” he said.
“No, no. Don’t stop,” I said quickly. “It’s fun. I like it.” As Lee started to describe the comic panels again, I felt sleep descend like a blanket.
“. . . and then pow! Bam! Superman’s fist flies through the air, cracking the asteroid apart . . .”
I nestled my head against my knees and curled my hair over my neck.
“‘Think you can destroy me, Superman? Ha!’” Lee’s voice rose and fell, adding a cackle here for the villain and a basso profundo there for our hero. It was like listening to a radio play but one being performed just for me.
“I kind of like Lex Luthor,” I heard him say at one point.
I answered him drowsily. “Hmm? He’s the bad guy. You can’t like him.”
“Nah. He’s just misunderstood.”
I woke the next morning laying on my side with a hooded sweatshirt—Lee’s, I realized—draped over me like a blanket. Sunlight warmed my cheek
s through the hole in the tree fort’s roof. In the corner opposite me, Lee was curled into a fetal position, wearing just a short-sleeved T-shirt with his jeans. He was using the stack of comic books as a pillow; his hands gripped the Superman he’d been reading aloud to me.
I had no idea when he’d given me his sweatshirt, but he must have been freezing all night. I stood and stretched, feeling every ache and cramp from sleeping overnight in a rotting tree house. In the sunlight, it looked like Tarzan’s home in a jungle. The leaves and vines crawling up the fort were slick with rain from the night before and the place smelled like peanut butter.
I inched closer to Lee and saw three empty Saran wrappers and one half-eaten sandwich next to the comics. A ring of strawberry jam lined his lips and a speck of sleep drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth. I was about to wake him when I had a better idea. I found my cell phone and snapped a picture of him fast asleep.
I tapped the screen to send it to his cell along with the message, thx 4 great nite.
I was in chemistry a few days later when I got Lee’s next text: movies 2nite, sneak in back
Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to put my phone on vibrate, so it beeped loudly.
“Whose phone was that?” the teacher roared, startling me. I quickly stuffed my phone back into my purse, but it was too late. His bald head swiveled from one side of the room to the other and he cast a sharp eye for the culprit. Class was held in the only lecture hall at the school, a room with a pitched floor so we had to look down at the white board and giant periodic table. Unlike conventional classrooms, we couldn’t hide behind anyone in chemistry. Mr. Mitchell could see every single one of us.
And he saw me.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mitchell,” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“No need, Middie,” he said, his voice softening when he realized it was my phone. “Please be aware of it for the future.”
The class began to murmur and Mr. Mitchell rapped his knuckles on the podium for attention. “That was not license for all of you to start chitchatting! Especially after that last exam.” He glared at everyone and went back to the board.
Behind me I heard whispers and then someone said, “Be nice. This must be really hard for her.”
Another voice clucked. “She doesn’t look that upset to me.”
It hurt to hear that, even if one of the girls was defending me. I wanted to turn to them and say, Do I have to be crying constantly in order to feel pain? Do you think it’s easy to avoid every tiny thing that reminds me of Nate every moment? But I didn’t. I kept my head down and let my hair fall across my eyes, willing myself not to weep.
A few hours later I met Lee outside the movie theater, one of the newest buildings in town, with four screens and a very busy concession stand.
“Not the back door,” he cautioned me, “the side one.” When I found him in the parking lot near his Vespa, he clarified, “Everyone who wants to sneak into the movies goes through the emergency exit in the back.” He led me toward a giant Dumpster, which was about fifteen feet from a nondescript black metal door with no handle on the exterior, so when it was shut, it blended in with the rest of the building.
Sure enough, as we watched for a few minutes, a couple of ten-year-old-boys tried to sneak in through the emergency exit of one of the theaters. Almost instantaneously, they were escorted out by one of the ushers in a maroon vest and matching pants.
“Don’t worry,” Lee said. “That won’t be us.”
“God, I hope not.” The thought of being chased away like a stray dog sounded humiliating. “So what do we do? How do we get in?”
We walked over to the wall and Lee grinned maniacally as if I were about to join a secret club of mental patients. “Watch this door. The ushers take the trash out between movies. You have about thirty seconds from the time they walk out, go over to the Dumpster, and then turn around.” He wobbled his hand in the air. “More or less.”
I tried to stay calm on the outside while my heart was beating hard in my chest. I was a good girl. Good girls didn’t sneak into the movies without paying. “Then what?”
His smile creased the corners of his eyes. “So serious, Meredith Daniels. I’ll take you into battle with me any day.”
“Just go on, before I lose my nerve.”
“By the way, I appreciate that you wore all black. Just like a ninja.”
I dropped my arms to my sides. “I didn’t know!” Black cotton pants and a black tank just seemed easiest to put together. And yeah, maybe I was trying to think stealthy.
“Once we get in, follow me to the right.” Lee gestured in the air, drawing an invisible map. “Stick close to the wall until we get through the employee entrance and into the lobby. Then we’re golden. We’re behind the ticket dude and we can go anywhere we want.” He paused and chewed on his lip. “You sure you’re ready for this?”
“I’m a ninja, remember?” I waved my hands in the air as if I were doing a martial arts move, karate chop.
“If you say Hai-ya! I’m leaving you right here, right now.”
Next to us, the door clicked open and I heard Lee cheer quietly. “Sweet! Tiny girl, big bag. Let’s go.” He grabbed my hand and flattened himself against the wall. Our hips were side by side, our shoulders pressed together. My nose twitched as I smelled cigarette smoke in Lee’s hair and on his clothes. Liza smokes. They were probably together.
The metal door swung open fully and the girl taking out the trash kicked a wooden wedge under it to prop it open. She was about five feet tall with spiky pink hair and lots of piercings. She struggled with the bag but eventually managed to fling it over her shoulder and half drag it to the Dumpster.
I watched her for a moment, mesmerized by the pretty cotton-candy color of her hair, until I heard Lee whisper urgently. “Meredith! Come on!” He was at the door ahead of me, waiting, his hand outstretched toward me. I felt like my feet were stuck in cement and I couldn’t move them. The girl was at the trash bin, struggling to open the lid, and soon she would be finished and headed back to the building. I had to move now—or never.
I lunged myself at Lee just as the girl turned, seeing us both. Her eyes flew open and she planted her fists on her hips. “Hey! You can’t do that!”
Part of me thought it was odd that a quirky, counterculture chick like this one would be yelling at us while another part thought, Go! Now! I ran into the back of Lee and he pulled me along the wall, inside the theater, through the employee entrance. We stumbled into the lobby, grinning in relief.
I glanced around us, half expecting a swarm of usher police to come after us, but no one did. Crowds stood in line for popcorn, but we were safely behind the counter. Before the pink-haired girl could find us, we hurried into the nearest theater. We slid into the first pair of empty seats we could find and tucked ourselves down. I couldn’t tell what was playing but it was something action-y. Cars screeched and horns honked. An alien ship flew through the air firing lasers at the humans running for cover.
In the dark, Lee grinned and his white teeth lit up the space between us. “Must be that Victorian drama everyone’s been talking about,” he whispered gleefully.
I felt giddy too. I’d done it. I’d sneaked into the movies. It made me insanely happy that Lee was happy. It probably shouldn’t have, but it did.
“Give me your phone,” he said quietly. “I wanna commemorate this.”
I shook my head. “Nuh-uh. We just got here. I don’t want to get kicked out.”
He frowned. “Killjoy.” Then he held his hand in front of us and leaned his head close to mine. “Click,” he whispered, as if he were taking a real picture. “Gotcha.”
CHAPTER twelve
“Oh my god, finally!” Haley exclaimed when I was at my locker, pulling out books for morning classes. She leaned into me. “Where have you been?”
I looked around me. “Um . . . school?”
“You have not. And I would know, because I have been here for the past week”—she po
inted first at her chest and then at mine—“and you have not.”
It hadn’t been a week. It couldn’t have been. Haley was being her melodramatic self. “You’re crazy, Hale. Where else would I be?”
She hugged her book bag to her chest and leaned in closer. “At the movies. With Lee Ryan.”
I felt a blush color my cheeks and I stuck my head into my locker to escape my friend’s inquisitive gaze. “How did you hear that?”
“Short? Pink hair? That’s my brother Cal’s girlfriend.”
“You know her?”
“She knows you. What were you thinking?” Haley asked. “Sneaking into a movie theater?” She shook her head. “That sounds like something I might try. But you?”
I pulled my head out of the locker and stared hard at Haley. She shrank back a bit. I so wanted to say, Why not me? Instead I closed my locker, trying very hard not to slam it shut. “Pretty hot today, huh?” I said. “Just like summer again. Indian summer.”
Haley kept her lips pressed together. She was pissed, but she didn’t want to be. I’d been keeping secrets from my best friend and she didn’t like it. Neither did I.
“Are you walking with me to homeroom?”
She nodded, slightly warily, and we walked down the hallway in silence. Outside homeroom, she stopped. “But what about Lee?”
At the mention of his name, images flooded my brain: the waterfall hike, the tree house sleepover . . . more secrets I’d been keeping from her.
I shrugged. “He was Nate’s friend.”
“And . . . ?”
“He was there too.” I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t. I knew the question in her eyes would make me uncomfortable. She wouldn’t be able to help herself: she would have to ask me. That was what a best friend did. I walked into the classroom and took a seat at the back. Another student stopped Haley at the door, asking a question about field hockey practice, and I took that time to slip away.
Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Delaney, pushed through everyone at the door with a hurried Excuse me and, as the first bell rang, she tapped her hand lazily on the sign at the front of the room: a black-and-white drawing of an old-fashioned flip phone with a red circle and slash. I reached into my purse and found mine to shut it off.
