Meet Me at Midnight

by Jessica Pennington

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  Copyright Page

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  To Platte Lake and the twenty-some years (and counting) of summer memories that made this book possible

  DAY 1

  Sidney

  Here’s the problem with knowing someone since you were ten and vacationing with them since you were thirteen: they know way too much. They’ve seen things. The neurotic things you only did once. The embarrassing things you wish you could forget. Usually it’s people we love who know these seemingly harmless things. But when it’s someone you hate … those tiny bits of your past become the ultimate ammunition. And with the right arsenal, it’s war. The war I call summer lasts exactly fifty-six days. It doesn’t end, and it has only two sides: mine and his.

  Asher Marin doesn’t let me live anything down, and he doesn’t let me forget. I don’t let him, either. It’s why we’re both darting out of our cabins at 8:37 a.m. on the first full day of summer vacation. Why I sat by the window, barely able to make out the shadow of him at his, as I ate my bowl of cereal this morning, twitching out of my seat with every flutter of activity from the kitchen window that mirrors mine. It’s our sixth year vacationing together in twin houses that sit atop a little hill overlooking a sprawling inland lake. And saying that we know each other doesn’t even begin to describe the two of us. To survive summer, I don’t just have to know Asher, I have to get in his brain.

  “Your hair looks pretty today,” he says. I’m walking out of my door as he walks out of his, my cereal bowl discarded so quickly I’m not positive it isn’t in shards in the old metal sink. We’re mirror images starting our days, as we each make a hard turn onto the concrete sidewalks that run alongside our houses—toward the deck that juts out from the hill rising up from the shoreline. He’s lazily smiling, and someone who didn’t know him—didn’t know us—would think he was being sweet. Complimenting me. But he’s not smiling, he’s smirking. I don’t have to look at his face to know; I can hear it in his voice. In the way the word hair comes out on the whisper of a laugh he didn’t allow himself to let loose.

  Because Asher’s in my brain, too. He knows I hate when my curls get like this, wild and untamable in the summer humidity. When I was younger I’d try to straighten them every morning, like I did for school, and as the day went on and the Michigan air took its toll, the curls would rise up around my face, consuming me like my very own auburn wildfire. When I was sixteen, I finally decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Wasn’t worth the snickers throughout the day, the sideways glances from him as my hair revealed its true form after a day of swimming. Who was I trying to impress, anyway? I like how easy it’s made my daily routine for two months out of the year.

  My hand is going to my hair without thinking, but I catch myself, twisting a few pieces in my fingers and squinting my eyes at him, still coming down the little sidewalk, keeping pace with me. I speed up, and he matches me.

  “I love that shirt,” I say, my voice level and innocent as I eye the vintage green T-shirt that stretches across his chest. “Did Jordan pick that out?” I say Jordan the way he says hair. Like it’s a weapon shooting off of my tongue.

  “Jordan and I broke up.” His voice matches mine, friendly and light. We’re maybe thirty feet from where our paths will merge into one, and I squeeze the towel rolled tight under my arm. My pulse speeds up, adrenaline pooling in my veins as we partake in the world’s slowest two-person sprint. We’re just a couple of pumping arms short of looking like old people powering through the mall in their bright-white sneakers. My flip-flops slap against the stone.

  “Oh, did you?” My voice drips with mock innocence. Asher and Jordan broke up about a month ago. I overheard my mom talking to his in one of their weekly phone calls leading up to our joint family vacation. Poor baby, such a sweet girl, blah blah blah.

  “Stalking me?” he says, his voice taking a teasing edge.

  It sounds a little stalkerish that I know about Jordan. But knowledge is power, and I can’t help that my mom insists on updating me about Asher every time she talks to Sylvie. As if I didn’t have the means to contact Asher a million different ways, if I wanted to. As if we’re friends and I need to know what he’s doing the ten months out of the year I’m not being subjected to his presence. “You wish.” I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see them. “You must have been distraught, if your mom had to call mine to talk about it.”

  “Devastated,” he says dramatically, not sounding it at all.

  “Lucky girl,” I say.

  “How’s … oh, what’s his name…?” In my periphery I can see his hand slap against his thigh like he’s trying to recall some lost bit of information. We try so hard, the two of us. We smile and tease and torture—the kind of animals that like to play with their food before they kill it.

  I cringe, knowing what’s coming next. I shouldn’t have pushed him on Jordan, I should have just left it alone. But that smug face of his. I set myself up for this.

  “Taylor…? David…? Evan…?” There’s a long pause and I inwardly cringe. “Or was it all of them?”

  I take in a deep breath and let it out. My face doesn’t change, my eyes don’t move. They’re focused on the deck looming below us, up ahead—the end goal.

  His voice is casual. “None of them stuck, huh?”

  “Now who’s stalking?”

  “I can’t help myself. Apparently your love life is better than an episode of The Bachelor. And you have a chatty mom, too.”

  I snicker. “You watch The Bachelor?” We’ve reached the spot at the crest of the hill where our paths converge and lead down into a single walkway of cement stairs. I narrow my eyes as we both squeeze onto them. They’re barely wider than one person, but we walk side by side, as fast as two people possibly can without running or tripping or looking like we’re purposefully racing. And we are racing. I let out a little snort. “That’s sad.”

  “As sad as your two-week boyfriends?”

  “Ten days,” I correct him with a shrug. “What can I say? I’m easily bored.”

  It’s true, there’s something that happens to me after the first week of dating someone. When the glittery newness has worn off, and I start to notice all of the little things that drive me crazy. Taylor constantly chewed with his mouth open. David started calling me babe. Like, You look cute, babe. Good night, babe. Do you want some popcorn, babe? All I could think about was the old movie I used to watch at my grandma’s house with my cousins. That little pink pig. And that my name isn’t freaking Babe.

  And Evan—okay, I’m the least proud of Evan. He was a full inch shorter than me. And it shouldn’t have bothered me; I know it shouldn’t have. And it didn’t … for nine full days. But by day ten, all I could t
hink about was our prom pictures. About dancing with him in two-inch heels. If I’d be able to see the top of his head, and if he’d have to stretch up on his toes to kiss me. If I’d have to wear flats to our hypothetical wedding someday. They were all little things—things that didn’t matter for ten whole days—things that wouldn’t matter anytime soon. But things I couldn’t let go of. Things I couldn’t imagine overlooking for months or years. And so what was the point? Best to end things before they got too serious; before I screwed it up too badly and it felt like an actual loss.

  “They were heartbroken, probably,” Asher says as our shoulders bump roughly and my foot slips off of the step and into the lumpy grass, throwing me off balance. He grabs me by the elbow and pulls me straight. I shake him away and he snickers.

  “Devastated,” I say.

  “I imagine.” His voice is level, serious. Mocking.

  “I would bet you imagine a lot of things about me.”

  He lets out a little grunt but I can tell he wants to laugh. “This is probably our last summer, Chipmunk.”

  “Don’t call me that.” I practically growl the words.

  “But it’s so cute.” I can hear the mock pout in his voice, can see his lake-blue puppy dog eyes, even without looking at him. I will never forgive my father for letting that nickname slip in front of Asher.

  “I’m going to destroy you,” I say with a smile. “You’ll be calling me something very different by the end of the summer.”

  “Sounds dirty,” he says, and I let out an irritated grunt. “Looking forward to it … Chipmunk.” There’s a smile in his voice.

  As we descend onto the wooden deck, we both abandon our illusion of normalcy and race for the chair. It’s sitting along the far side of the square deck, its soft, thick cushion the lone pop of color in a string of hard, white plastic lounge chairs. The unicorn chair, as I like to call it. The one comfy, padded lounge chair. A mystical, magical chair amongst a sea of cheap plastic ones. I hip-check Asher and twist toward it, but he lunges from behind me, throwing an arm around my waist.

  “Let me go,” I grunt, trying to pull away, my feet kicking at his ankles. But he pulls me tight to his chest and twists us. And then I’m falling. I’m free-falling, until I’m in his lap, on top of the lounge chair. I twist this way and that.

  “How much do you hate me right now?” The words whisper against my neck and send a shiver up my spine.

  “Hard nine,” I say through gritted teeth, and his chest shakes against me in unreleased laughter. “Let. Me. Go.”

  “Gladly,” he says, loosening his arm and reclining back onto the plush green pad.

  I stand there for a minute, staring down at him, his head tipped back, eyes closed, laid out on the unicorn chair like a summer prince. At his long, tan legs stretched out in front of him, and the messy golden brown hair that skirts across his forehead. Asher has a swimmer’s body. Broad shoulders, slim waist. Lean muscles I wish I could look at without scowling. But I can’t, because Asher Marin is the absolute worst. And by the end of summer, I’m going to make him regret all of the summers that came before this one. All of the pranks and the snarky comments. It doesn’t matter who started this between us so long ago, because this summer I’m going to finish it.

  I’m about to lay my towel on one of the hard plastic monstrosities on the opposite side of the little deck, but then stop. Asher may have speed and brute strength to his advantage, but I’m more patient. He’s a bomb, but I’m a sniper’s bullet.

  “Enjoy your chair,” I say, a smile on my face. Then I turn and walk back toward the houses. I veer a little once I get to the top of the stairs, letting him wonder which house I’m going to and what I’ll do there. He can’t see me now; I’m blocked by the hedge of wild bushes that grow along the top of the hill. Let him get used to not knowing where I’m headed—because what I have planned for him this summer? He’ll never see it coming.

  Asher

  There’s a one-in-four chance Sidney Walters is going to murder me someday. Except no one will ever suspect her, because she’d be neurotic enough to make a checklist—or ten—and cover all of her bases. Sidney would do research (probably annotated) on how to hide my body. She’s been researching it for the last ten months, for all I know. Maybe since we were thirteen and started vacationing together here.

  Even though Sidney’s favorite part of summer is screwing with me, she looks innocent. Like now; she is almost certainly about to soak all of my underwear in sugar water (that attracts ants and other bugs, in case you were wondering) or lace my body wash with something only detectable by dogs. And when the neighborhood Chihuahuas start trailing me through town she won’t even bat an eye.

  It’s also possible she goes after my food—there was the time she used a syringe to put vinegar in the grapefruit I ate every morning. Total serial killer move, right? Sadly, Sidney could walk right into our cabin with a fistful of syringes and a backpack full of hair remover, and my mom wouldn’t blink an eye. She’d probably offer her a cup of coffee and ask how her senior year had gone before sending her on her way with a smile. Because Sidney Walters is a proverbial ray of sunshine—with everyone but me. Awesome, very likable (if I do say so myself) me.

  I fought for this chair—threw half of my oatmeal away for it—so I’m sure as hell going to sit in it. Leaving now would be admitting fear, which is as good as admitting defeat when it comes to Sidney. I close my eyes, put on my headphones, and try to listen to the beats of my favorite song. But my mind keeps wandering back to my room, and if I remembered to put my things in all of their strategic spots. Summer (for me, at least) is about self-defense and preservation as much as it is about offensive strikes. Minimizing vulnerabilities. Making my attack zone smaller. I’m not sure when I started thinking like a Navy SEAL.

  I try to mentally walk through everything on my dresser and remember what I left out, but I can’t visualize it. Instead, I focus on what I have lined up for Sidney this summer. I spend more time during the year than I’d like to admit thinking about these eight weeks of vacation. And this year in particular, it was basically all I could think about for the last six months. Senioritis was strong with me.

  Could I do something more productive with my time this summer? Obviously. I could sit down and write that letter to Mr. Ockler. The one Dad has been on me about for months. A letter, not e-mail, because anything important comes in print, my dad says. All it takes is one letter, Ash. A quick note to show how passionate you are about financial planning. One letter, and in Dad’s eyes, I’ll be set for life. I’ll have an apprenticeship to work through college, and the second I graduate I’ll be ready to start building my own office. Walking door-to-door, telling people how I can help them enjoy their retirements. Just like Dad. All I have to do is write that letter—but thinking about pranking Sidney is so much more interesting.

  I have a whole box of supplies, and to prevent it all from falling into enemy hands—Sidney’s hands—I have it stashed in the boathouse storage area under her cabin. With Sidney, it’s all about psychological warfare. She overthinks things more than anyone I’ve ever met. So when I need something I plan to stroll right into the boathouse in broad daylight, when she’s no more than twenty feet away. It’s sure to throw her off the scent—she’ll never believe I would hide anything that obviously.

  Her first instinct will be to check, but then she’ll convince herself I’m just trying to distract her, or lure her into something, and she’ll decide not to go down there. Plus, it’s spider city in the boathouse; I can’t imagine her actually digging through the crap in there to get to my box without having a major bug-induced meltdown. And that would be its own kind of victory. A win for me, either way.

  Sidney

  My room—clad in dark wood paneling—is a little musty when I walk in. Probably it’s always a little musty, but I only notice it the day we arrive each summer, before the scent takes up permanent residence in my nose and becomes my new normal. I don’t notice it again until I
get home and unzip my bag, greeted by the damp earthiness of my vacation clothes. It’s not a bad smell; it’s almost comforting, the way it reminds me that for the next two months I can forget about test scores and papers, and focus on nothing but what my body can do when it’s racing through the water. And this summer, training will be my middle name. Because in ten short weeks I’ll be a collegiate swimmer. And I’ve been promising my mom for years now that I’m going to break her 1,650-yard freestyle record. The record that’s held for almost twenty-five years now. I’ll never have more time to train than I do this summer. Watch out, Mom, I’m coming for you.

  I haul up my giant duffel bag, slamming it onto the squeaky bed that bounces like it’s a trampoline. The mossy-green comforter is the same one that’s been on this bed since I was twelve. Since that first summer we arrived at Five Pines Resort and Lake House A. I shove the wooden window open, letting the mid-June air, hot and wet, drift into my room. At home I’d die without air-conditioning—would murder and maim for it—but the heat isn’t the same here. We’re four hours north, in a little beach town that feels too small to exist outside of the months of June, July, and August. It’s always a little cooler here in Riverton—the breeze slides across the lake, like there’s some sort of spell over it, working in our favor as we lie out in the sun, draping ourselves over rafts and plastic chairs.

  I abandon my bag—I should have unpacked last night when we got in, but it was late and the drive had zapped all of the energy out of me. But I can unpack later, when the sun is down and the water isn’t calling me. I make my way down the little hallway (also covered in brown wood paneling) and into the kitchen. The kitchen in Lake House A is a fraction of the size of our kitchen at home. It’s what Mom calls a postage stamp, tucked into a corner across from the little dining room and living room. The kitchen and dining room look out onto the yard and the neighboring house—Lake House B—and the living room has a row of windows that look out over the kidney bean–shaped lake.