Meet Me at Midnight

by Jessica Pennington

  I especially suspect they’re using us for their own amusement when they do crap like announce that we’re going to start having dinner together every night. Sidney’s mom, Kris, claims it makes sense. Why should we sit in our separate homes, eating meals at the same time, when we could sit around and eat with each other?

  Because it gives us more time to guard our homes?

  Because I’m closer to my room and all of my stuff that Sidney inevitably wants to mess with?

  And because she’s Kris, she also reminds us that not only will it be fun and practical, but we’ll also save electricity and water (and basically everything but our sanity) by having these joint family dinners. Nightly. That’s fifty-six dinners.

  Which means Sidney and I have an entire hour that we have to play nice while we’re held captive at the dining room table. I’m not sure we even know how to function like normal people anymore. Will we just implode from being in the same area for an hour without tormenting one another? Will the angry little crease in her forehead become permanent being in my presence for fifty-six hours’ worth of dinners this summer?

  Tonight we’re at her house, seated at opposite ends of the long oval table, with our parents coupled up on either side of us. We are the reigning king and queen of mealtime misery, and all we can really hope is that neither of us tries to behead the other and gets blood all over the floor. (Or our grilled chicken, roasted broccoli, and sweet corn, which is delicious.)

  These dinners do have a few foreseeable perks, though. I glance toward the hallway that leads to the little bathroom I know Sidney uses. I’m sure there’s more than one way I can use this time in enemy territory to my advantage.

  At the very least I can have some fun. I catch Sidney’s eye and hold her gaze. Even when I spear a piece of broccoli, I keep my eyes on her, daring her to look away. Yes, we can do this. Nothing makes time fly like harassing one another. Sidney’s eyes narrow in annoyance, but she doesn’t take them off of me. I reach for the salt shaker and blindly shake it over the blurry yellow blob that is my corn cob. Sidney reaches for her water glass, and her fingers tap against the glass as she gets a hold on it. I fumble with a roll when my mom holds the basket out to me, and Sidney clumsily spoons rice onto her plate, a chunk of it falling onto the table. In my mental tally, I give myself a point. She gets one when I pick my spoon up by accident and try to gouge a piece of chicken with it.

  When I tip over my glass of water, both of us break our gaze at the same time, looking to our parents, who are all laughing. At my clumsiness or our little game, I’m not sure, but when I crawl under the table with a rag thrown at me by my mom, the game is officially over.

  Sidney

  As Asher hoists himself off of the floor, I realize for the first time since we started our little staring game that the area around my plate looks like it should be adorned with a paper placemat and crayons. There is a heap of rice that never made it onto my plate, three pieces of broccoli I must have knocked off while blindly cutting my chicken, and a blob of melted butter. Way to keep it classy, Sid. You’ll fit right in on campus in a few months. Thoughts of school always bring back what I’m really focused on this summer—not food fights with myself, or staring games with Asher. Sitting to my right is the reigning queen of the Division II 1,650-yard freestyle, and if I have anything to say about it, by the end of my freshman season, she’ll be abdicating her throne. I’ve promised her since I was nine and wearing my first team Speedo that I’d do it. Back then it was a pipe dream, the kind of thing you say when you’re too young to know what it even means. But now, it’s in my sights.

  “Set your alarm,” I say, and my dad groans. I roll my eyes. He’s not the one swimming two thousand yards across the lake before breakfast; I’m not sure he has any room to be grumbly and cranky. I, on the other hand, have to sit across from Asher and try not to laugh at him spilling food all over himself while I’m trying to eat a meal.

  Asher clears his throat and sets his fork on his plate. “I can spot her,” he says, looking at my dad and not me. A whole new kind of staring game is happening, and I will my dad to look at me, but his eyes are fixed on Asher.

  I’m not sure if I’m laughing or choking, but there’s a strangled noise sliding out of me, making everyone look my way. As if my dad is going to put my safety in Asher’s hands?

  “Are you sure?” My dad’s voice is hopeful, and it makes my stomach sink.

  Please please please, no.

  “It’s no problem.” Asher stabs a piece of chicken with his fork, and meets my eye. “I can’t sleep past six thirty anyway.” A side effect of the early morning swims Asher probably does all year. I suspect the only person I know who trains harder than me is Asher. He makes the guys on my team look flubby and soft. One more reason I need to stay on track this summer—college will be a whole different level of competition, and half of the team will be female versions of Asher.

  Game on. “I leave at six.” I don’t break eye contact as I smile, and hope Dad doesn’t call me on the lie I’m hoping will deter Asher. Even he’s not going to give up thirty minutes of sleep just to torment me.

  Asher gives me his own smile, and I wonder if anyone else realizes it’s more killer than kind. “Not a problem,” he says coolly.

  Dad claps his hands together. “That’s settled.” He lets out a relieved breath and shakes his head, like he just woke himself from some sort of nightmare.

  “I didn’t realize it was so horrible,” I say, my voice soft but biting.

  Dad gives me a sympathetic glance. “It’s not, Chipmunk—”

  God, that nickname. I shoot Asher a warning look, and his face is pinched tight, his shoulders lightly shaking.

  “It’s just”—he lets out a sigh—“it’s so early. And … boring.” His face mirrors the shock in my own, like he can’t believe he said it. I can’t believe he said it out loud. My dad—the guy who prides himself on having shown up to every one of my mom’s meets in college—admits that watching his daughter train bores him?

  I take a drink of my water, setting my glass down softly. “But we always do the morning swims together.”

  “I know, but this is Ash’s thing, too … maybe he can even give you some tips while he’s at it.”

  I snort. Asher as spotter, making sure I’m not hit by a rogue fishing boat? Okay, fine. But my pseudo-coach? No. Hard pass. I give Dad a little smile that I hope says, Sure, I’ll think about it.

  Across the table, Asher is smiling at me. I fight the urge to scowl and stab a piece of broccoli instead.

  “I’ll meet you at the boat at six,” he says, lifting a cob of sweet corn to his mouth and taking a slow, deliberate bite.

  “Six fifteen,” I correct. “I like to shower and wake up first.” I’d like to leave at six thirty like usual, but now my lie is out there, and it’s going to cost me fifteen minutes of precious sleep.

  Asher bites his bright yellow corn cob in a slow, straight line, holding my eyes. There’s a smile hidden there, and I try to school my face and the scowl I can feel brewing. He takes the last bite at the end and mouths ding.

  I almost lose it. My mother and her stupid stories. A few years ago my mother just had to tell everyone the “cute story” about how I used to eat my corn on the cob like the old-fashioned electric typewriter my grandma had when I was little. I’d eat it in a straight line, say ding! when I reached the end, then start in on the next row. Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, ding! Chomp, chomp, chomp, ding! Only Asher would remember that stupid story a million years later. Does he take notes somewhere? Record all of these stupid family conversations on his phone?

  “Six-fifteen.” He smiles behind the cob. “Should be fun.”

  Fun. I think he and I have different definitions of the word.

  “Definitely. Don’t forget your suit, you can take the leg back,” I say. “I’d be happy to give you some pointers as well.”

  Asher smiles and our parents chat across the table about winery trips and new restauran
ts to check out, as if we’ve become invisible again. “Looking forward to it.”

  DAY 3

  Sidney

  The next morning, I am nearly unconscious. You would think, since I’ve been getting up at the crack of dawn every other day of vacation for the last five years, it wouldn’t be an issue anymore—that my body would remember what’s happening and snap into gear—but when 6 a.m. rolls around it’s not familiar, it’s painful. So painful. Like my eyelids will need to be surgically separated if they’re ever going to function properly again. My room is dark and the hallway is dark, and I think maybe I’ve seen the light of day for the last time as I stumble toward the bathroom door. My eyelids are permanently closed. This is my life now.

  I slink into the bathroom, opting for the dim light above the vanity, rather than the fluorescent box that hangs over the little shower stall. Stripping off my tank and shorts, I step into the shower, ready to be blasted awake by the cold. I could just wait to jump into the frigid lake, but I’d rather shake off the sleepiness before I start training. Especially for my first morning swim with Asher. Gah, even just thinking about it is miserable. He’ll probably try to run me down with the boat, so I need to be awake when I get out there, in case I need to go all action-movie mode and swim under the boat or something.

  Head limp against the cream-colored tiles, I push the clear plastic knob up and to the right, mentally preparing for the onslaught. The strange smell hits me almost as quickly as the cold. It’s familiar, but so out of place—tangy, maybe. Almost citrus, but not quite. It smells like my childhood, somehow. Everything in this house has its own unique smell, but this one is a first, and it doesn’t fit. The cold sharpness against my skin distracts me, but as the pelting water numbs me and loses its bite, I relax and let my eyes slowly crack open.

  What the hell?

  Red streams everywhere. My first thought is that I’m bleeding, that I somehow, unconsciously, sliced my foot open. It looks like something out of a horror movie. Like there should be a bloody red handprint on the shower wall next to me. I’m tired, but I would have remembered severing my toe, I think. My eyes travel from the swirling red drain up my stained legs, and to my blotchy red stomach. Red. I’m red all over. My brain is still foggy and I feel a little like I’m in the last dregs of a nightmare.

  I look up toward the showerhead, the water lightening in color now, and tentatively stick out my tongue as the smell finally registers. Cherry. It smells like my favorite Kool-Aid, the stuff I used to live off of every summer, back before I cared about how much sugar I drank.

  “Asher.” I say his name like a mumbled curse, deep in my throat, my teeth clenched so tight they squeak a little under the pressure.

  When I head out, my towel is stained from rubbing, but I still couldn’t get all of the red off of my skin. It’s concentrated around my knees and elbows, and in patches across my stomach—thankfully covered by my swimsuit—and my face. My face, which is turned toward the dock, where my new safety buddy is now standing, waiting to trail me across the lake. He’s lucky I’m too claustrophobic—and easily bored—to go to prison, or he’d need to be worried about being out on the open water with me.

  “Mornin’,” he says, his face focused on the can of gas he’s dumping into the tank as I approach the little silver boat. My dad brings a small fishing boat to the lake every year, but for lake swims we always use the little silver rowboat that belongs to Five Pines, and ditch the oars for an outboard motor on the back. Asher reaches forward and I can see his suit sticking out from the waistband of his shorts. His phone is in a plastic bag sitting on the floor of the boat. Clearly he doesn’t trust me, either. Good. He shouldn’t.

  I sit on the little bench that stretches across the front of the boat, my eyes fixed on the back of his head as he pours the gas. When he turns, he looks me right in the eyes. His travel from my face down to my splotchy wrists and linger on my knees, which are the reddest parts of my body. Note to self: moisturize your knees once in a while. I lift my little canteen to my mouth and take a casual sip. “Morning.”

  The corner of his mouth twitches and I wait for the smile, but it doesn’t come. “You smell nice today,” he says, still on the brink of that smile. I’m not sure if I remember what Asher looks like smiling anymore. Smirking, yes. But smiling is as good as admitting guilt. And that is one of the three unspoken rules of this war we wage each summer.

  1.Never admit guilt

  2.No serious injuries

  3.No snitching

  Rule number one means we don’t smile, or laugh, or implicitly gloat. I’m not sure why—maybe because saying out loud that you filled someone’s drink with soy sauce or left earthworms in their bed just sounds mean. Rule number two ensures we never have to break rule number three. We haven’t snitched on each other since we were fifteen and Asher put marbles on the floor beside my bed. I’m not sure if he was actively trying to kill me, or just wasn’t thinking, but I lost my balance and cracked my head on the nightstand. I wouldn’t have ratted him out to my parents, but it was bleeding so much I was sure I was going to die, and I had to get six stitches. All in all it was only a one-inch cut. Asher apologized profusely—the only time either of us has—and maybe the whole thing would have stopped at that point, if I hadn’t retaliated a few days later. Head wound or not, I wasn’t going to literally let him land the winning blow.

  Asher starts up the engine and takes a seat across from me. We’re not ten feet from the dock when he reaches his silver mug toward me. “Coffee?”

  I shake my canteen in front of me. “I’m good.”

  “Right.” I can see that smirk about to break through. “You probably filled up on Kool-Aid this morning, huh?”

  Asher

  Sidney stands up so quickly, I have to cut the engine so she doesn’t topple over the side. Before it has even quieted, she’s climbing over, lowering herself into the water.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Swimming,” she says, walking through the shallow water that’s just up to her thighs. “Arms. Legs. Water.” She pulls her T-shirt over her head and tosses it in a crumpled pile into the boat in front of me. “An obnoxious boy following you in a boat. Sound familiar?” She keeps walking, and I keep the boat far enough to the side that I won’t bump into her accidentally. She’s wearing a plain suit—dark navy—but tight and shiny and cut high on her leg, like a team suit. As the water reaches her chest, she dips down into the water and pushes herself forward, a billowy cloud pluming up around her as her feet leave the sand.

  Sidney disappears under the water and comes up about fifteen feet ahead. Her cheek dips down into the water, and then up, and down, as she swims steadily into the light chop of the lake. I start the motor back up and idle the boat to the side of her, giving her a few feet and keeping pace. I have the air horn Tom gave me in one hand, though a quick scan of the lake tells me there’s not a boat to be seen anywhere near us. The fishing boats are already settled into their spots for the morning, and the speedboats pulling skiers and tubers won’t hit the lake for hours, after the morning chill burns off. The only ones cutting across the lake at this hour are neurotic swimmers and the guys hell-bent enough on annoying them to ruin their own mornings.

  I look at the other side of the lake, imagining the little bay I know dips inland there, but it’s still too far to make out. This is going to take a while—Sid isn’t going for speed, she’s building endurance. Open-water swimming is so much harder than in the pool, where there aren’t waves and frigid temps and currents to deal with. I can’t remember the last time Sidney and I spent an hour straight alone together, unless you count the time we spend lying on the deck chairs in silence every morning, after we vie for that stupid padded lounge chair. The unicorn. I know she calls it that, though she never says it in front of me anymore. I laugh, because her head’s underwater and I can. I shake as I think about her diving toward that chair, and standing under a stream of cherry Kool-Aid. Thank you, family dinners.

&nb
sp; Sidney’s head bobs up, and down, and up, and down. It’s quiet out here. The motor is barely running; the lake is only slightly choppy, yet to be churned up by a day’s worth of skiers, tubers, and Jet Skis. And Tom was right, I’m already bored. I glance at my phone, sitting on the bench next to me. It’s been ten whole minutes. Swimming in open water is so much slower than in a pool, even in a lake as calm as this one. And Sidney doesn’t seem to be in any rush—maybe this is all part of her plan.

  “I’m bored,” I say toward Sidney’s bobbing head, but of course she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even pause to tell me I’m being a baby. She can’t hear you. The thought frees something inside me.

  “I can’t believe you do this every other day.” That’s a lie, though, because it’s totally something she would do. “Scratch that. I can totally believe you’d do this every other day. Because you’re the most obsessive person I’ve ever met. You can’t do anything halfway. That’s why I have to pack my bags for vacation like I’m going off to war.” I ramble on, to the open air. “You’re a worthy opponent, Sidney Walters. You’re neurotic, and have a stick up your ass the size of a small oak tree, but you’re worthy. No doubt.”

  I raise my voice a little and imagine Sidney can hear me. I like the idea that she’s forced to listen to whatever I say, each of us captive to the other. “Did I ever tell you about the time I tried pranking my best friend Todd?” I laugh. “Of course I didn’t. Well, it was last year, a week after I got home, and I was still wired from the summer. From our … whatever this is. The crap we do to each other. Todd had come over to my house and stolen my favorite pair of headphones—he’d wanted them forever, and I forgot to bring them to the lake, so when they were gone, I knew who took them.” Just saying this out loud sounds like I’m completely unhinged. Saying it to someone’s back is a whole new level. “So I got into his car, and I put glitter in all of his air vents. I had to use a little dropper, to get the glitter to sit on the edge of the plastic vents. Todd’s air-conditioning has been broken since he got that car, but he always breaks down at some point and turns on the air. Like he thinks it’s magically going to fix itself at some point, or that the air coming in will somehow be cooler than the air outside. So he was good and sweaty by the time he got blasted.” I laugh just thinking about it again. “Man, he was pissed. Because it turns out he had texted me about grabbing the headphones for a trip he was going on. My mom gave them to him and everything. I missed the text. It took him a million showers to get the glitter off, and I swear it’s still in his car, wedged into all the little cracks.” When I shake my head I’m not sure if it’s at myself or at Sidney. Maybe it’s at what she does to me. “You mess my head up,” I say to the water.