Crossroads

by Lori L. Otto

  I lift my eyebrows and look at her sweetly. We meet in the middle for a kiss. “I think we just found our song, Laila.”

  I hand her the iPod and give her control, letting her skip through songs she doesn’t care for, making mental notes of the songs she passes over. Classic rock isn’t her thing. It’s funny she doesn’t like the genre that I now associate most with her.

  She also skips anything classical. Anything without lyrics, it seems. She likes to hear the words, which doesn’t surprise me, really. Laila likes poetry and literature. Her favorites are Thoreau and Wordsworth. Give her any text about nature, and she will automatically love it, and it will become a permanent part of who she is.

  I’m going to miss knowing her, and seeing her grow up. In the months we’ve had together, I’ve observed so many changes in her. Just two weeks ago, I was showing Matty and Nolan pictures of her. We’d taken hundreds of selfies since our first date just before school started last year until the day I had to move back to Manhattan two months ago. Matty even commented that we looked like two different people when we compared the first picture to the last one.

  Her hair was longer and darker. Her cheekbones were more pronounced. She wore less makeup now, but her lips looked naturally fuller, always with a sheen of gloss on them. Her muscles were more toned, undoubtedly due to her involvement in athletics. Her shoulders were a tad broader, but her neck seemed longer, too, and her collarbone was more defined. Her breasts had filled out, too, by a lot. Last summer, she barely had any to speak of. Now, they were round and full in my hands, and my mouth.

  I glance at her quickly to see if she’s noticed the hard-on brought on by the mere thought of what we were doing in the tree. Her eyes are closed as she listens to the song. I look at the door to make sure we’re alone, then put my hand on her breast and my mouth on her jaw.

  “Will!” she says, a crimson blush breaking through her tanned skin. She pushes me away. “What if your aunt walks in?!”

  “I’m sorry. I was just thinking about kissing you there, and I just lost it for a second.”

  “Lost what exactly?” She looks angry.

  “Control? My mind? My manners? Laila, I’m sorry. Please don’t be mad.”

  “Am I interrupting something?” My best friend’s voice booms from the doorway.

  “Landry!” we both say together. Laila jumps off of my bed, the action pulling both of our earbuds out simultaneously.

  “Hey, Landry!” I get off my bed and reach my fist out to his, our normal greeting. “How are you?”

  “Good, man. Good to see you! Didn’t mean to barge in on anything.”

  “We were just listening to music,” Laila says. “You’re not interrupting anything.”

  “How are you, Laila?” he asks.

  “I’m well, Landry, thank you,” she says politely.

  “I didn’t know you were coming over,” I tell him.

  “Your aunt asked me to come for dinner. She says it’s almost ready, too.”

  “Cool. I’ll go help her set the table, if you guys want to hang out for a few minutes.” I leave my friends alone and make my way to the kitchen.

  “Thanks for inviting Landry,” I tell Aunt Patty, noticing the table is already set. “Oh, I would have helped you get the table set.”

  “You can do the dishes,” she says. I’ve always known the deal at her house, and don’t argue, even though I rarely pitch in for my mom at my apartment in New York. To be fair, she doesn’t hold up her end of the bargain, either, typically cooking us microwave dinners or heating up left-overs from the one sub-par meal she attempted to cook the one night she made it home early enough to do so. “You and Laila sure have been quiet in your room,” she says, her voice suggesting we were doing something wrong.

  “We were just listening to music with the headphones,” I tell her, leaving out the part where I felt Laila up. “We weren’t doing anything you wouldn't have wanted to walk in on.”

  “Okay,” she says.

  “Is that why you asked Landry over?”

  “I had too much food,” she says. “But you and Laila have been alone all afternoon.”

  “Aunt Patty, this is the only alone time we were going to get. The three of us are planning to hang out all day tomorrow. Laila’s a good girl, you know her. And, I mean, there’s me. I’m not horrible.”

  “I remember Max telling on you two a few times in your room.”

  “Max is a liar.” All we ever did was kiss in front of him. “And an attention-whore.”

  “Don’t say that word, Will. It’s vulgar.”

  “Not in that context, Aunt Patty.” She glares at me. “But I won’t say it again.”

  “Thank you. Now go get your friends.”

  “Strange Brew”

  I park the car in an empty row, not confident in my parking abilities in the crowded lot at the fair. Aunt Patty was reluctant to let me take her car today, but eventually relented since it was only a short drive across town. She made me swear on my iPod (her idea) that I would drive to Laila’s, to Landry’s, to the fair, to a restaurant for dinner, back to Landry’s, back to Laila’s, and be home by 9:10, ten minutes after Laila’s curfew. I swore with my fingers crossed behind my back, because if there was any way I could ditch Landry at any point today, I’d take him home, take Laila to dinner, and then drive her out to the hill. I’d snuck two blankets out of a chest of drawers and put them in the trunk while she was showering.

  Landry opens Laila’s door for her before I have a chance to. I’m not sure when he became chivalrous, but it’s about time.

  “We don’t have to buy any tickets,” Landry announces.

  “Why not?”

  “My parents came last night with my sisters, and bought a ton, but Mom got sick, so they left early. They don’t want them to go to waste.” He pulls four booklets of tickets out of his pocket. “This should really cover us for the day. We just have to pay to get in.”

  “That’s awesome! Thanks, Landry!”

  Laila smiles, zipping up the tiny purse she’d just settled across her body. “Laila, I’ll get your entry fee, and if there’s anything else you want that can’t be bought with tickets, it’s on me. Okay?” I take her hand in mine.

  “Really?” she asks. I know she was used to me having no money before, but I’m grateful that Jon and Livvy gave me the extra cash now.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ve got some extra allowance, too, Laila,” Landry adds.

  I look at him curiously. “I’ve got it. Thanks, though.”

  “I’m just offering,” he says quietly to me.

  “She’s my girlfriend. I’ll take care of her. Okay?”

  “Alright, whatever.”

  Once inside, we head to the nearest ride, which is a funhouse. “I get to ride with Laila first!” Landry says.

  “Wait, what?” I ask. “This isn’t a shotgun scenario. You get your own girlfriend. Then you get to ride the rides with her. What part of that is confusing for you?”

  “Will, it’s one ride,” Laila says. “Don’t you feel sorry for him?”

  I laugh incredulously. “Seriously?” I ask her, shaking my head. “No, not really. I mean… I guess I was assuming you’d ride the rides with me, but… if you want to ride them with him, go right ahead.” I don’t hide my feelings from her, because they’re admittedly hurt.

  She pulls me aside, away from Landry. “Will, come on. Don’t be like that.”

  “It’s a dark ride, Laila. You don’t let your girl go on a dark ride with another guy.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “The Possessed Shaft? A haunted ride, where it’s dark and scary and meant to scare the girl into the arms of a guy?”

  “Landry thinks Phantom of the Opera is a horror story,” she says. “You and I have watched double features of The Exorcist and The Shining–twice.”

  “That doesn’t put my mind at ease, because then he’ll just be flailing and helpless in your arms. Laila, if a
ll I can do with you today is hold your hand because you’re afraid people from church are going to see us together, then please let me be the one to ride the dark ride with you, okay? He can ride the teacups with you. I won’t go near those vomit-producers.”

  She grins and nods her head, and starts to walk back toward Landry. I hold her hand and tug her back to me. “But do you think there’s any chance that we can find a way to be alone at all today?”

  “I’m not sure. We’ll just have to see how the day goes. I’m just happy to be spending it with you.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” I say back to her, squeezing her hand.

  “Okay!” Laila announces. “Landry gets the first ride! But it’s the teacups! I think they’re over here!” She pulls me along with her, and I don’t mind at all her change in direction.

  The teacups aren’t a good choice, either. I realize this after seeing them together on them, because they’re both laughing hysterically and Laila’s practically in Landry’s lap due to the centrifugal force caused by the ride. After only a few seconds, I wander over to the first booth on the midway and give the man with the megaphone a twenty. He hands me three fives in change, and three baseballs.

  “Alls you gotta do, son, is knock the painted bottles down with the ball.”

  “All three bottles?” I ask.

  “Yessir.”

  “In one pitch, or all three?” I clarify the rules.

  “One pitch.”

  “And the prize?”

  “A small toy if you do it once; a medium toy if you do it twice; and a large toy if you do it with all three pitches.”

  “What are the bottles made of?”

  “Wood.”

  “What kind of wood?”

  “What kind?”

  “Different woods have different densities.”

  “I don’t know, son.”

  “Well, are they solid or hollow?”

  “Solid.”

  “Weighted?”

  The carnie looks annoyed. “You gonna play, or do you want your five back?”

  “I just want to know if the bottles are weighted at all. Can I hold one?”

  “What are you, a physicist or something?”

  “I’m a junior in high school. I just want to win something for my girlfriend.”

  “Throw the balls, junior,” he says.

  I stretch my shoulders and grip one of the balls. Every Wednesday when we have dinner at the Hollands, Max and I play catch in the backyard with Trey and Jack. More often than not, Max and Trey are making up their own games, and Jack and I toss the ball more seriously, and I listen to his slight corrections. Even in Manhattan, his yard allows for much more throwing space than this tiny area, so I’m not surprised when I completely miss the bottles that are way too close to me.

  “You ask me all those questions, and you can’t even hit one bottle?” he taunts me.

  I just needed to get that one toss in.

  The next one connects hard with the bottom left bottle and knocks them all down. “Lucky,” the carnie says. I ignore him and take the last pitch, hitting the two bottom bottles with full force, dead center in between them. Again, all the bottles fall.

  “Pick your prize,” is all he says to me, pointing at a pegboard with medium-sized prizes. There’s a blue and white inflatable monkey with arms that look like they’d wrap around something. I think back to all of our time spent in trees, and know it’s what I need to get her.

  “That one,” I tell him, pointing at the toy. After he hands it to me, I add, “I’m pretty sure it’s just pine. The wood, that is. The bottles appear to be fairly lightweight. I wonder why they don’t use heavier wood.”

  “Find another game, kid,” he says, sending me on my way.

  I meet up with Laila and Landry halfway between the midway and the teacups, producing the monkey from behind my back and attaching it to my girlfriend’s upper arm.

  “Oh, that’s so cute!” she says. “It’s a monkey…” Her lips form a wistful frown. I nod in understanding. “The Possessed Shaft?” she asks.

  “Sure!”

  “I’m going to the midway,” Landry announces.

  “We’ll meet you there,” I tell him. I take Laila’s hand in mine and lead her back toward the entranceway where the dark ride was. Once it’s our turn, we kiss through the darkness, and act like well-behaved teenagers in the artificially lit parts, just in case someone she knows sees us together.

  “Thank you for saving that one for me,” I tell her, walking slowly on purpose to extend our time to ourselves. I replace the monkey on her arm that I’d been holding for her on the ride.

  “It was worth it,” she responds.

  “Listen, I can ask Landry later to get lost for awhile or something–”

  “No, Will. I don’t want anyone to think that we’re… you know. He doesn’t know, does he?”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t tell anyone. I promised you that.”

  “We need to just act normal, Will.”

  “Could you pretend to get sick?” I suggest.

  “He’d tell his parents. Then my parents would know, and they’d be all over me about it. I’d be stuck in bed, which isn’t what you want.”

  “Maybe we’ll just get tired of each other before dinner time,” she says.

  “I’m not going to get tired of you.”

  “I’m thinking more along the lines of him getting sick of us. But he’d have to be the one to decide to leave. We can’t make that suggestion, or he’ll be on to us.”

  “I can make that happen, Laila,” I tell her. “We just have to be more affectionate–”

  “Well, we can’t do that,” she interrupts.

  “Less inclusive of him, then,” I correct my thought to explain what I really meant. “We have more conversations just between us. We walk at our own pace. We ride our own rides. We do what we want to do today.”

  “That’s kind of rude,” she says.

  “I know,” I say with a sigh, not wanting to hurt my friend. I wish I could have stayed for one more day, but my aunt couldn’t take off work Monday to take me to the airport.

  I have spent all summer building up this one weekend to be the weekend. If it doesn’t happen this weekend, the rest of the summer’s going to suck horribly.

  “What about tomorrow morning?”

  “It’s Sunday, Will. Church,” she says simply. “Won’t you go with your aunt?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Not even to see me?”

  “Seeing you in church isn’t really seeing you the way I want to see you, Laila. It’s almost the exact opposite of the way I want to see you.”

  A sexy smile spreads across her lips.

  “I want to sin with you, remember?”

  “You don’t believe that,” she says. When we started dating, I did, but over the course of a year, in studying different religions and belief systems, I started forming my own opinions that didn’t neatly fit into any category. I’m not sure what I believe, spiritually, if anything. It’s something I think about often; something that wants a definitive answer in my mind, but hasn’t settled on one yet.

  “But I know you do,” I tell her.

  “I think it’s a minor sin,” she admits, “and what we want to do won’t hurt anyone. We love one another. And that is something the Bible teaches: to love one another.”

  “And I don’t mind you focusing on that part of it for what we want to do, either,” I add. “How can an act of love be a sin?” It’s one of the things that began my questioning in the first place. Who cares if two people do or don’t have a piece of paper that legally binds them together? Why should that be the thing that allows them to sleep together? It almost seems unrelated to me.

  But still I understand some people believe that, and it’s their right to do so. I won’t mock or belittle someone for that. In learning about different religions and cultures, it’s also taught me to be tolerant and accepting of their beliefs. We all have them. Whether they’
re based on ancient texts, on stars, on folklore and myths, or on facts, they’re all the beliefs of individuals.

  “There’s Landry,” Laila says, pointing to our friend at the basketball game in the midway. We cheer him on, watching a few balls sink through the hoop in the allotted time, but apparently not enough to net him a prize.

  “One more try?” The woman working the game asks him. She has on short red shorts and a tight blue polo shirt that’s been washed one too many times.

  “No, I’m out,” he says.

  “Have you won anything?” I ask.

  “No,” he says angrily. “How many damn games did you play before you won that?” he asks, pointing to the monkey.

  I wonder if I should lie to make him feel better, because it’s obvious he’s played more than one. “A couple,” I say, not making it sound much better than reality.

  “Which game?”

  “The one where you throw the ball at the wooden bottles.”

  “How the hell did you do it? Can you show me?”

  “Uhhh… the guy told me to find a new game, so I don’t think he wants me back. But I just aimed for the bottom ones.”

  “I couldn’t hit a single bottle.”

  “Maybe throwing at a target isn’t your thing. Did you try the fishing one?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “What about the water gun?”

  “Tried it?”

  “The darts?” Laila asks. “You’re good at darts.”

  I didn’t know he was good at darts.

  “I’m not good at those darts. They feel funny in your hands. I think they cheat at all of these.”

  “Probably so. Landry, it’s not worth wasting your money on,” I tell him. “It’s certainly not worth getting frustrated over. Why don’t we go get a bite to eat? Then we can hit some more rides.”

  “Sounds good,” he says. “But maybe the guy at the ball and bottle game will be gone after lunch, and you can show me how then.”

  “We can stop back by and see,” I say to appease him. “You just need to find your game. I would suck at any other game. You know I’ve been throwing baseballs with my brothers since I could walk.”