Meet Me at Midnight

by Jessica Pennington

  “Back here.” The words slip past my lips without thinking.

  The look of horror on Asher’s face registers before my mistake does. And before either of us can move, the bedroom door is opening, and Nadine is stepping in.

  She gags as she takes a step toward me, sounding like she’s about to dry heave. Asher is crouched down in his bed frame, one hand holding his mattress up to the wall. The soggy pile of papers is in my hands, no doubt dripping onto my shoes. I’ll have to burn them. At this rate, we might have to burn the whole house down. Nadine jabs her chin at the soggy pile in my hands. “What is that?”

  I have never wanted to drop something so badly before, but I hold on, trying to remain calm. I look to Asher, and swallow about nineteen times before the words finally come. “Fish,” is all I say.

  Nadine’s bracelets jangle as her hands settle on her hips. “What is it doing in here?” She looks to the dark spot on the floor. “Besides soaking into the carpet pad and floor.” She shakes her head.

  Behind me there’s a soft crash and then Asher is standing at my side. “It was an accident. A joke.” His voice is light, the friendliest I’ve heard it all day. He nudges his elbow gently into my side and says softly, “Take it into the kitchen, Sid.” Then his voice is strong and confident when he says, “We’re cleaning it up right now. We’ll take care of it.”

  I’m still standing at the edge of the kitchen, listening for her response, when she walks past me and out the door without a word.

  Asher

  Dinner should be at our house tonight, but for obvious reasons it’s been moved next door. It’s late for dinner, almost eight o’clock, because we had to get fans stuck in all of the windows, and Sidney drove to four different places trying to find a carpet-cleaning machine to rent. I disassembled my bed for her and moved my mattress into the hallway, but we didn’t speak. The parents have hardly said a word to us, either, but disappointment practically radiates off of them.

  “I’ll do the dishes tonight,” Sidney offers, and I almost feel bad for how shitty she must feel right now. She’s not the kind of person who takes parental disappointment well. My guess is that Sidney is making herself feel ten times worse than her parents ever could.

  “Obviously,” her mom says, just as my mom says, “Asher will help.” We didn’t go into details about what happened—maybe the parents don’t want details about who to be mad at when it’s easier to just be mad at us equally. They’re not completely wrong.

  Sidney’s poking at a piece of garlic bread when there’s a knock on the door so loud the metal frame of the screen door vibrates against it.

  Tom is up out of his chair, a step away from the door, when it swings open. Nadine steps into the kitchen, one of her usual brightly colored dress-shirt things hanging off of her. It’s like a giant rainbow fabric-bag. Her blond hair is twisted up into a swirl on the top of her head, and her red lipstick is uneven at the edges, bleeding into the pale white of her skin. I will never understand how someone can live on a lake and be so pale. Or cranky. Isn’t lake life supposed to be for easygoing people who love margaritas and cold beer and putting their toes in the sand? Or has country music been lying my whole life?

  “Nad—” Tom’s confused voice is cut off.

  Nadine slams a piece of paper onto the table between the dads. “I want you all out in forty-eight hours.”

  “Nadine—”

  “It’s something every year. A mysterious stain.” I think of the Kool-Aid shower, wonder if there are stains, and if she knows it somehow. “A broken piece of furniture.” The deck chair we broke two summers ago. The one Nadine replaced with the unicorn. “I find pots in the wrong houses, and cabinets stocked with the wrong things.”

  “We share,” Mom says, her voice soft and shocked.

  “Because you are too comfortable.” Nadine’s face is cold. “This isn’t your house. It’s mine.”

  Kris looks like she might throw up. I know what she’s thinking: for two months out of the summer, these are our houses. We don’t think about the other people who stay here after us. These houses wait for us all year. They’re ours. Our houses on our lake.

  “Nadine, we’ve always paid for any issues,” Dad says. That makes my face heat red. I didn’t realize they were paying for issues that Sidney and I likely caused. Why haven’t they said anything to us? Have they been skimming the money out of my college fund or something?

  “Yes, but I have to fix them. I have to worry about the state of things for the next renters.” She glances out the window toward my house. “I have to wonder what is happening in these houses.”

  Tom rolls his eyes but she can’t see it. “This is awfully extreme, I’m sure we can—”

  Nadine shakes her head briskly. “Forty-eight hours and I want you out. You’ll get a full refund for the next seven weeks.”

  Dad’s face pales and Mom looks like she might cry. I might cry. Or scream. Sidney is sitting, still and quiet, just like my mom. They both look like they may burst into tears at any moment.

  “Where are we supposed to go? It’s peak season, we’ll never find rentals.” Tom’s voice is still calm, his face a mask of cool fury.

  “Nadine, please,” Kris says. “We’ve been coming here for years, this is a second home to us.”

  Nadine’s eyes look at Kris sympathetically, and for a moment I think she’s going to cave. But then her chin lifts just slightly and her face is hard again. And I may be imagining it but I think her eyes settle on Sidney for just a second too long to be comfortable, before she turns back to the four adults now muttering obscenities under their breath. “Forty-eight hours.”

  Sidney

  After dinner, Mom, Dad, Sylvie, and Greg convene in our living room, and Asher and I are out on the deck after washing dishes in silence. We sit in white plastic lounge chairs, both of us avoiding the unicorn. Probably because it’s a reminder of how our neurotic feuding has led to this. I came out here thinking it would be a good spot to eavesdrop without being obvious, but once the angry voices died down it turned out I couldn’t hear anything at all.

  “This is our fault.” I’ve been thinking it since Nadine barged into our house, and I can’t help but say it out loud.

  “Ours?” Asher mutters, and it’s the first time he’s really spoken to me since Nadine walked in on us.

  Defensiveness wells up inside me, guilt scraping at my throat.

  “I’m gonna cruise around the lake and look for rental signs.”

  “Can I come with?” I hate how desperate, almost panicked my voice sounds.

  There’s a long stretch of silence, and I’m expecting more annoyance from him. More anger. Because no matter what I say out loud, this is my fault. There should be smoke coming out of Asher’s ears, for how hard he’s thinking about this simple question. As if he’s just been asked to go on a boat ride with a serial killer. I don’t even know why I want to go. Maybe I just don’t want to be alone out here when our parents finally emerge. The guilt is so much easier when it’s directed at us, and not just me.

  The silence is killing me, so I finally break it. “I want to hit something.”

  “Not it.” His eyes finally swing from the imaginary spot on the lake where they’ve been fixed and land on me. The lightness in his voice surprises me.

  I roll my eyes. “And ruin that pretty face of yours? I would never.”

  Asher smirks. “You think I’m pretty.” The familiar snark in his voice relaxes something inside me just a fraction.

  “You think you’re pretty.” I hear the whir of a blender and look back at the cabin. It’s not fair that they get to drown their sorrows in peach daiquiris and we just have to suffer. With each other. But sitting here is just making me anxious. I’d rather be doing something, helping somehow.

  Maybe my inner monologue has come out, because Asher shifts in his chair and says, “Fine, let’s go.”

  He stands and holds a hand out to me. A normal person would probably take it without thinking
, but I just stare at it. As if I’m not sure what to do with such a strange appendage. He rolls his eyes and grabs my hand, pulling me up out of the chair. Then he walks away, headed toward the boat. I don’t know why I’m so unnerved, but I am. I feel like I’m about to walk into an ambush. An animal fed treats before being led to the slaughter. Not that Asher touching my hand was a treat. Obviously. I think about the other night, the way he touched my face, laid his hand on mine, put his lips on mine, and a little shiver runs through me. I don’t know if it’s pleasure or fear. Maybe the two feel too similar when it comes to Asher. He walks toward the boat, and I let myself wait a few seconds, watching him cross the grass and step onto the dock.

  He stops and turns toward me. “Are you coming?”

  * * *

  The lake is calm, smooth like glass as we skip across it in Dad’s little fishing boat. Asher is in the back, sitting behind the steering column, and I’m on the bench seat that stretches in front of it. The air is blowing his hair into what looks like a mohawk and it’s such a funny look for him, I’m having trouble taking my eyes off of it. With his hair off of his face it’s easier to notice the bright blue eyes, and the way his cheeks are red from the sun. He is pretty. Obnoxious and arrogant, but pretty. I’ll give him that.

  “You look like a dog with its head out the window,” I say, my eyes drifting past him to the shoreline.

  “I feel like one.”

  I want to bite back with something snappy, but all I can think about is that there aren’t many rental signs out on the lake. I’ve spotted three so far. Two of them were tiny little cabins that looked smaller than my bedroom, and none of them were next to each other.

  “What do you think happens if we don’t find houses?” I sound nervous. A kind of nervous I don’t usually let Asher see.

  He shrugs. Maybe it’s the wind that’s making his cheeks so red—his whole face is starting to pink up. “We all go home, I guess.”

  We sit in silence as we make our way around the long oval lake. Usually we’re boating across the lake—slowly—and it’s surprising how quickly we boat around the entire perimeter when we’re going at a normal speed. It’s half an hour later when Asher cuts the engine in the deep water in front of our houses. Our houses. That’s what I wanted to scream at Nadine while she stood in our kitchen. We’re still hundreds of feet out from the dock, much too far to just let ourselves drift in.

  “What are you doing?” I ask Asher.

  He doesn’t speak, just opens a compartment next to him and starts digging around.

  “Are you going to kill me out here?”

  Asher pulls out a tangle of silver metal and rope and shakes his head at me. “Stop it.” He starts pulling on the rope until he has it bundled in one hand. He tosses the anchor out toward the deeper water and pulls on the rope until it’s taut, and the stern of the boat swings toward the shore. Then he slumps back into his seat. “I don’t feel like going back yet.”

  “We’re just going to sit here?”

  “Yeah, do you think we can manage that?” He sounds angry, and I’m not sure what to make of it. Our usual banter is teasing and snarky, but it’s really never felt mean or angry. I’m not sure what I did. It’s not like this was all my fault. Our pranks are tit for tat, and he’s done just as many of them as I have.

  I don’t say anything, just look at him from under my lashes, and shrug with a muttered whatever. I look at the shoreline. At the two little white houses sitting like mirror images above the water, Nadine’s house looming twice as high behind them. And it finally sinks in that whether we find new houses or not, we’re never coming back here. My chest tightens and I can feel the tears threatening. It’s too much—too many things ending. High school, and friendships, and summer vacations. These two stupid, tacky little houses.

  The tear escapes before I can stop it, trailing down my cheek like a silent good-bye. I keep my eyes focused on the shoreline, avoiding the boy whose eyes I can feel on me.

  “I kind of thought we’d come here forever.” Asher’s voice sounds as sad as I feel.

  “Forever?”

  He shrugs. “Forever-adjacent, I guess.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” And I mean it. I had told myself that this was going to be the last year, that once I was in college I’d be too busy to go on family vacations, too old to hang out with my parents. But deep down, I think I knew I’d be back here. Maybe not for two months, but for a week or two, at least. Escaping summer classes or a demanding job. Taking a break before swim practices start each fall. The sadness is welling up again, and another tear falls and splashes against my bare leg. This time I wipe it away; there’s no way Asher didn’t see it.

  “Mom said you made the team at Oakwood.”

  I take a deep breath to steady my voice. “Yeah.” I can’t help but smile. “I found out a few months ago.”

  “Weird that we’ll be on the same team for once, huh?”

  I shouldn’t be surprised we’ll be teammates, because Oakwood has a great Division II swim program and it’s where our parents went, where our moms swam. It’s been at the top of both of our lists for a long time. But I am surprised, because I always thought Asher would go Division I. “Your mom never said anything until yesterday morning. I had no idea,” I admit.

  Asher shrugs. “Maybe she thought it would be funny if we just ran into each other in the pool.”

  He looks as nervous as I feel when he says, “On the bright side, you’ll have easy access to terrorize me.”

  “Ditto.”

  “We can go in now if you want.” Asher stands up and puts a hand on the anchor’s rope.

  “Maybe just a little longer.”

  He smiles, and I can’t remember the last time I saw him smile at me. But then the memory of our kiss hits me like a wave—the curve of his mouth before he kissed me, the softness of his lips, the look in his eyes. His smile now doesn’t hold the promise it did that night; it’s small, inconsequential, but I return it. “We can stay as long as you want,” he says. But we both know it isn’t true.

  DAY 9

  Asher

  The parents spend the next day feverishly house hunting. They sit around the kitchen table in the morning, huddled together like some sort of war council, and we don’t see them again until midafternoon when they come home during a gap in their showings.

  “How’s it going?” I ask my dad anxiously. He’s sitting on our deck with a bottle of beer. The way he’s looking out at the lake longingly, like he might be saying good-bye soon, isn’t making me very optimistic.

  “It’s … going,” he says, taking a drink and setting his bottle on the white plastic table beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I feel like I need to. “You guys must know the shit me and Sid do every summer, and I don’t know what happened this time. Things just…” He’s still looking out at the lake. “I’m sorry we screwed this all up.”

  “Not that I want to condone this weird feud you and Sidney have going on”—Dad takes a sip and puts his bottle back down—“but I don’t think that’s what this was really about.”

  “But Nadine said—”

  “I know what she said, but this is the first time she’s ever said anything to us. I think she’s got some sort of agenda of her own.” He points to the giant house looming behind us. “Ever since they built that house, things have been tense around here. Maybe she’s finally over having renters in her backyard.”

  “Then why build your house behind rental houses?”

  Dad doesn’t say anything, just points his beer at me and raises his brows, as if to say exactly.

  It doesn’t change the situation at all, but it makes me feel a tiny bit better to think that this isn’t entirely about Sidney and me.

  Dad swallows and licks his lips. “Listen, I know things are … weird … with you and Sidney. But you need to figure it out. Fix things with her. We’ve always let the two of you hash things out, because you’re both good kids.” Dad sets his empty bo
ttle on the railing. “But it’s starting to affect everyone.”

  I nod.

  “How’s the letter going?” Dad’s voice is brighter, like he’s flipped a switch from the sad Sidney situation to the bright and happy topic of my future as a financial planning wizard. Or maybe since he’s a wizard, that would make me an apprentice. Or me being a wizard would make him a mage?

  I don’t know anything about wizards or mages, so I suppose I’m just avoiding The Letter. It sounds so ominous and important. It is important. And maybe a tiny bit ominous, too, though it’s hard to pinpoint why just the thought of it puts a knot in my stomach. “I’m working on it.”

  “Can I read what you have so far?”

  Dear Mr. Ockler …

  I have a feeling Dad wouldn’t be impressed by my current progress. “Maybe next week?”

  Dad nods, and looks back out toward the lake.

  “You think there’s any chance we’ll find houses?”

  Dad pushes himself up out of his chair and turns back toward the house. “No idea, but we’ll do what we can.” He takes a few steps toward the kitchen door, where I see Mom standing. “We have a few showings left today, and a bunch of properties we still need to hear back from. We’ve called everyone locally we can, trying to find houses that might not normally be available.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not looking great, though. And you should know, Mom and I agreed that the Walters get first dibs if it comes down to it. This whole thing started with them.”

  My stomach sinks. Sidney could stay, and I could leave? How is that fair? I glance over at the deck by the lake where Sidney is laid out on the unicorn, her hair fanned out behind her. She looks peaceful from this distance; soft and gentle. I can almost imagine she’s that girl I met my first summer here, and not the competitive psycho she actually is. Her sunscreen and water bottle are on the deck beside her. As I look at her I think about a very important question: if this is the end, what will my final farewell to Sidney Walters be?