Meet Me at Midnight

by Jessica Pennington

  When I turned thirteen my parents had a limo pick me and all of my friends up from school, and take us to this amazing concert a few hours away. I was sure that was the best birthday present possible, never to be outdone … until Asher went and brought my dream to life right in Nadine’s yard. Seriously, where does he keep the notebook full of every weird thing I’ve ever said?

  “When did you do this?” It’s maybe ten thirty, barely dusk. I look back to Nadine’s house, where all of the windows are dark.

  “After dinner. I had some help moving things. And getting Nadine out of the house.”

  Lindsay. I hate that I have to think of her on my birthday, but for this, I will. For this, I will think her name without an ounce of annoyance. Because spread across the yard is Nadine’s beloved collection, all posed to make their grand escape. I spot Edith a few feet from her normal hiding spot, walking behind a green frog. In front of it is a line of gnomes—two adults and two children—walking side by side as if they’re heading off somewhere together. Through the yard there are animals and strange creatures, all cutting a path to the same place … the lake. Little lines of sculptures stream out of garden beds, and like ant trails they all filter into one long line going down the center of the yard between Lake Houses A and B. Asher pulls my hand and leads me farther into the yard. We stand next to the giant brontosaurus, and from here I can see all of the animals lined up along the hill. They stretch all the way to the dock, where two gnomes stand in orange life vests outside of Nadine’s beige pontoon boat. A large penguin sits behind the wheel of the boat, also in a life vest. The seats are covered with frogs and turtles, geese in their tacky little outfits—now with goggles added—and a ferocious-looking lion taking up watch at the back, its head peeking out from the open door. I look behind us, at the herd of animals fleeing Nadine’s house, and laugh.

  And laugh.

  And laugh.

  Asher’s face may crack from smiling the way he is.

  Breathlessly, I say, “Best. Birthday. Ever.”

  “Better than ceiling stars?”

  I nod.

  Asher points toward a red balloon floating up behind one of the statues. “That’s your actual present.”

  I take a step toward it. “Edith?”

  Asher picks up the elephant and holds it between us. Up close, I can see that it’s a slightly different color than Edith; darker and more vibrant. “That’s actually Edith’s baby cousin, Ellen.” He smiles.

  I look around at all of the strange creatures, each one perfectly placed, some of them obviously too large for one person to move. “This is … too much.”

  Asher shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”

  But that’s exactly what this feels like. And I’m not sure if that should thrill me or terrify me, but it does both. And I wasn’t lying when I said this is the best birthday ever.

  DAY 32

  Sidney

  The brochure said this leg of the river takes two hours to float down, but I didn’t think about how long that would actually feel like when Asher and I are just staring at each other. I thought it would be hilarious to watch Asher float down the river on this stupid raft I picked out—a giant rainbow-colored unicorn swan. I’ve never been on one of these floating river trips before, and it seemed like it would be something fun and different, not like sitting in a boring restaurant. But I didn’t think about what we’d actually do while we were floating along on this cupcake of a raft. Because all we can really do is talk. Talk and float, and float and talk. Think about kissing. Not kiss, because there are other people living their lives out on this river, in canoes and kayaks.

  “So tell me about Taylor and David and Evan…”

  We’re lying on our backs, arms propped behind us, legs hanging in the water. I wore my two-piece, but I wish I was in one of my Speedos, because honestly, I’m half-tempted to get off of this thing and swim. Especially if Asher wants to spend our time talking about exes.

  I fix Asher with a stare that says I don’t think so. “Tell me about Jordan.”

  “What do you want to know?” Asher says, his face smug.

  I smile. “Why did you break up?”

  “Reasons.”

  “Are you still friends?”

  Asher shrugs. “We don’t hang out or anything, but yeah, I guess.”

  It doesn’t surprise me that Asher is the kind of guy who gets along with his exes; it would actually shock me if he wasn’t. Everyone likes Asher, and that’s the way Asher likes it.

  “There’s not much to say about them,” I offer, hoping a simple answer will be enough to get him off of my back. “We didn’t date long, and it just didn’t work out.”

  “Are you still friends?”

  I wonder if Asher cares, or if he’s just asking because I did. I give him the same casual shrug he gave me. “Yeah, I guess. As much as we were before.”

  I try to change the subject. “Should we hit Nadine again next week? Maybe do something really elaborate? Find a new vegetable to utilize? Maybe bury some frozen fish around her yard, really drive her dog nuts? Though honestly, I don’t think anything can beat the yard sculptures.” I smile, because just thinking about the gnomes in life jackets cracks me up. “Best birthday present ever.”

  Asher laughs and I know he’s on to me. But I don’t care. I will come up with horrible, horrible things, if it means I don’t have to sit on this giant swan and spill my guts.

  Asher

  Sid looks at her phone, which is encased in the plastic bag that’s looped to the neck of our swan. I want to laugh at how much she hates talking to me about this stuff, but at least she said something.

  “Do you think it’s normal that we’re going this slowly?” she asks.

  “You know it’s called a lazy river, right?”

  “More like a deadbeat river,” Sidney mutters and I laugh. “I don’t understand how we can be moving this slowly. We’ll never make it to the beach in time.” Sidney hasn’t said what lies at the end of this trip, but I assume it’s the sunset.

  “It’s taking exactly how long the brochure said it would take.”

  “Hm.” It’s really cute how annoyed she is right now.

  I don’t blame her for being anxious, it’s hard to be so close to the water and not be in it.

  We’ve missed a few morning swims since game night and our date. Our date. Even in my head, where no one else can hear them, the words sound crazy. But Sidney says if we’re going to do this then we can’t get all soft about training. The girl has laser focus. I don’t want her to have any excuse to call this off, so now I put extra effort into our morning swims. Extra effort sounds like I’m putting myself out somehow, but there’s nothing punishing about watching Sidney while she swims. I just have to be sure to focus on her form, while I’m focusing on her form. Which is currently just inches away from me, wearing much less than on our morning swims. I need a distraction. “You should hang off of the back and paddle.” I’m trying not to smile but it’s not working at all, I’m already laughing. “That would be good conditioning.”

  Sidney leans forward and pushes my shoulder. It’s not rough but it’s hard enough that it throws our weight all off, and my side of the swan dips under me. I grab for her to stop myself, but the moment has me crashing into the water with Sidney trailing after me, headfirst. We hit the water in a flail of arms and legs.

  We surface to snickering from a kayak passing by, the older man pointing his paddle at us. “You all right?”

  Sidney’s hair is a tangle around her face, and she sweeps it back with her hand. “No worries, we’re swimmers. That’s why we’re so graceful in the water.”

  The man doesn’t seem to know whether she’s being serious or not, and just paddles away. I try to stand and can’t touch, so I swim downstream to catch our float, which has drifted quickly without our weight. Sidney grabs hold of it just as I do, and I wonder if she was secretly racing me. Probably.

  We tread water alongside our raft, contemplating
how to get back onto it. I pull on the edge, and it flips over. I try to hoist Sidney up with one hand, but every time her weight hits the edge, it flips. We can’t even hang on the same side of it without it flipping over. So she hangs on one side, and I hang on the other, our arms crossed in front of us on the raft.

  “I noticed something during your swim this morning.” My voice trails off, because I’m nervous to bring this up. Is it rude to critique her stroke while we’re on a date? Technically we are in the water.

  Sidney rests her head on her hands. “I’m listening.”

  I tell her about her rotation and how she can fix it. She listens and nods, and she doesn’t look annoyed with me at all.

  “You’re good,” she says.

  “At watching you?”

  She squints her eyes and shakes her head, like I’m ridiculous. “At coaching.” She smiles. “Which happens to require watching me”—she rolls her eyes—“which you’re also good at.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “Watch you?” I can’t help but grin. “Probably.” She splashes water over the raft, and I run a hand down my wet face.

  “Stop it. Are you going to coach?”

  I think about it for a few seconds, unsure of how much I want to share with her. “Isn’t that what all washed-up swimmers eventually do?”

  She laughs and gives me a judgmental glare. “People coach. Professionally. That’s not unheard of.”

  I shrug and think about that stupid letter still sitting in my notes. What would happen if I just didn’t send it? If Mr. Ockler found someone else, and my grand four-year plan was completely derailed? Has Dad already secured that position for me? Is the letter really just a formality, something to make me feel like I got it on my own? Sidney is looking at me like she can read my thoughts.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, that’s just all I can picture you doing.” She shrugs. “If I think of you in ten years, it’s by a pool.”

  “You think about me a lot?”

  She buries her head into her arm and mumbles. “Whatever.”

  “Am I always in my suit?”

  Sidney laughs and I can feel the vibration through the raft. Her head pops up again. “Hate to break it to you, but coaches don’t walk around deck in their Speedos.”

  “I bet I do, in your fantasies.”

  “So about Nadine.” She’s looking off into the distance, trying to be casual. “How do you feel about utilizing Saran Wrap on fish, instead of paper?”

  She’s just trying to change the subject, so I do it for her. “My dad has a college-long apprenticeship set up for me.” It feels like the words came out of my mouth against my will, but once they’re out it feels right. Like I should have said it a long time ago.

  “And you’re…” Sid spreads one hand out in front of her and I can almost see the invisible line there, waiting to be filled in.

  “Indifferent?” I shrug. “Annoyed?”

  She nods and looks past me toward the riverbank, like she’s searching for something there. “What did you want to be when you were younger? You know, when people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Before you were old enough for them to be all judgy about it.”

  “A swimmer. Michael Phelps, specifically.”

  “Even when you were little?”

  “As long as I can remember.”

  She doesn’t say anything, just looks at that space over my shoulder again, like she’s not sure what to say.

  “It’s not really a practical career, though.” I can almost hear my dad’s voice in mine. “It’s the kind of thing you do on the side. You know, nights and weekends at some high school or club team.”

  “I mean, it’s not an actual college major, like that’s your only option when you graduate. It’s just an end goal. You get a degree in something else.” She shrugs. “Education, maybe? You’d be a great teacher … Or there’s business administration … sports administration. The grad student who helped my high school team was studying sports psychology.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to be a counselor?” I tease.

  “Positive.” Sidney is smiling, and it’s the new normal. Everything seems to make her smile; it makes me wonder how hard she had to work to keep that from me every summer.

  When our feet finally hit the rocky bottom again, we hoist ourselves back onto the rainbow-colored float, our bodies side by side, our feet dangling off the edge. Sidney’s head rests on my bicep, and our sides are pressed up against each other.

  Just as I’m contemplating whether we could make out as we float, a group of canoes cuts through the water next to us. It feels like we’re alone out here, but we’re definitely not. So instead, I just think about dead puppy dogs and fish rotting under my bed, and definitely not Sidney lying right next to me in her bikini. And when I get back to my room hours later, I lay on my bed and stare at my phone as a list of careers that are not what my dad wants fills my screen. There’s no harm in just looking.

  Sidney

  After being so close to Asher for three hours, it feels weird to be a room apart. I look at the bathroom door, imagining him on the other side, then look at my bedroom door, and wonder what’s on the other side. Could he be out in the living room, hoping I’ll come out, too? It’s a long shot that he’s as amped up to see me as I am him, but I slide off of my bed in my pajamas and take a chance anyway. I’m careful to open my door quietly, and to not look too eager when I emerge from the hallway, just in case the parents are still up. But the living room is empty and quiet and dark. I look down the hallway, all of the doorways dark.

  Inside my room, I open my bathroom door and push through to find that Asher’s side is wide open. Interesting. I take a deep breath and walk across my room to press the lock on my bedroom door. The confidence I had walking out to the living room disappears as I cross the distance to Asher’s door and prop myself against the door frame, trying to look casual. Oh hey, I’m always strutting into guys’ bedrooms at midnight in my pajamas. Asher is lying in bed, his face illuminated by the soft glow of his phone.

  “Hey,” he says softly.

  “You wanna watch a movie?” I wonder if he sees through me, to the part that desperately just wants to be pressed up against him again, and will take any excuse to crawl into that bed.

  He sets his phone down on his nightstand and picks up the little black remote that’s sitting there. His bed is pushed up against the wall under the window, so my choices are to crawl on from the end, or crawl over him. I choose the first. Asher props a pillow up behind me, and I settle next to him, our legs and arms pressed up against each other.

  He sets his hand on the bare skin above my knee, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to close my eyes. Because this feels like a dream, alone in the dark with him. I shift toward him, curling my chest against his arm, and it shifts his hand to my inner thigh, his fingers grazing the sensitive skin there.

  He points the remote at the TV. So I guess we’re going through with this charade, the one where we watch TV in the dark in his bed. “What do you want to watch?” My cheek is pressed against his arm and I feel the words vibrate through him.

  “I don’t care.”

  Asher stops at the first thing that comes on—a sad war movie I watched with my parents a few years ago—and I drown out the voices as every inch of me focuses on the spot where Asher’s hand rests on my thigh, his thumb stroking up and down, so slightly that I’m not entirely sure he knows he’s doing it. Maybe I’m the only one not watching this movie. Maybe he doesn’t realize that if his fingers keep rubbing in that spot, I will crawl out of my skin and leave it behind like a lizard. Because if I don’t run out of here soon, the only other option is to get closer.

  As if he can hear me, his thumb strokes wide arches, and his fingers curl and uncurl, and with each stroke against my bare skin, my body feels like it’s pleading with me to push myself closer to him. When he moves his hand a
nd puts it back at his side, it feels like a monumental loss, like taking away a birthday present or dessert. But then he twists toward me, and we’re chest-to-chest. Then we’re mouth-to-mouth.

  Asher’s hand is back on my thigh, higher than last time, at the edge of my sleep shorts, very close to where none of my ten-day boyfriends ever touched me. He pulls his mouth from mine, the space so tiny our lips are almost touching. “Is this okay?” His fingers slip under the edge of my shorts, and I feel like I should say no, but I don’t want to. I kiss him, and nod against his mouth, and his hand moves against me again, a little clumsily, as layers of thin fabric between us are touched and lifted, pushed aside. Soon we are wrapped up together, a mess of kissing lips and searching hands, and twining legs seeking friction against each other.

  When we finally fall asleep it’s like lying in sunshine, wrapped up in summer.

  DAY 33

  Sidney

  Breakfast was … weird. For five minutes—or maybe it was five hours—all I could think about was what we did last night. But then Asher kissed my temple and stole a triangle of toast from my plate, and by the time we left the kitchen for our morning swim, it was hand in hand and normal. As normal as the two of us ever are, at least.

  But when we got back, Sylvie and Greg were packing up their car for a trip to the little fish town that Sylvie loves so much. A family trip, she told him. It took everything in me not to laugh or even seem interested when Sylvie explained it would just be the three of them, and Asher went into full-on pout mode.

  I wonder if telling our parents about us would make things easier or harder. If they’d be more understanding of letting us spend time together, or if they’d go out of their way to make sure we have some space from each other. My parents would probably switch rooms with Asher and become my new roomies. They wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.