Meet Me at Midnight

by Jessica Pennington

There go the eyes again. “How’d you manage it? Did Lindsay help? Has she been in on it the whole time?”

  Lindsay? “Excuse me? In on what?”

  This time she doesn’t bother with her eyes and really does let her whole head do the job, throwing her head back before it comes forward again. “For once, let’s own up to what we did, okay? This isn’t Kool-Aid or contaminated shampoo, or even rotten fish. This is disorderly conduct.” She practically screams the last two words. “So you win. You win the whole summer. The last six years. You have trumped everything.”

  I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what she’s accusing me of right now. Of setting her up tonight; potentially getting her arrested. “You honestly think I spent all summer winning you over just so I could get you arrested? That was my big finale?”

  “What am I supposed to think? You sprang tonight on me last minute. You conveniently forgot something and had to leave. You weren’t there when I had to face the music for everything we’ve done this summer.”

  “And you have been looking for any excuse for us not to work right from the start. You’re scared of this working, and you’re scared of this not working, and you’re just … scared of everything.”

  Sidney narrows her eyes at me and her head tips to the right, like she’s trying to get a better look at me. “You think you’re so brave, but how’s that letter going? Don’t tell me about being afraid when you can’t even talk to your own dad about a decision that affects your whole freaking future.”

  “Sid, I just need you to try to see this rationally for two seconds, before you ruin everything.” And she is. I can feel all of the bricks I chipped away at this summer building back up around her.

  “If I’m so irrational, so scared, so horrible—I’m not sure why you’d even want to be with me.”

  I tug on my hair, because I sort of want to rip it out. I laugh at the absurdity of all this. “Maybe all the compromised food you’ve fed me over the years has eaten away at my brain.”

  Sid crosses her arms over her chest and I know this look. Too well. This is her war face. I am the enemy, and she’s not backing down until she’s the victor. “And maybe all of the suspiciously nice things you’ve said to me all summer started to convince me you really were nice.”

  “So I’m too nice now?” When I laugh it doesn’t sound like me, it sounds slightly deranged. “I can’t win. You know, maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow and decide this was a horrible idea, but I don’t even care. I guess you were right all along. This can only end one way. It’s pretty clear that you’re not going to let it end the good way. So for my sake, let’s just forget about this, okay? Because you’re right, this isn’t the sort of thing we should get into if we’re not serious about it. We don’t need to screw up our families for a summer fling.”

  “That’s what this was to you.”

  I hate the conviction in her voice, like she believes it, or at least wants to. “It’s the opposite of what this was for me, but you’ve been convinced this couldn’t work right from the start, and I’m tired of trying to convince you you’re wrong.”

  “So we agree.”

  “No. We don’t.” I jab my finger at her. “You think this can’t work because … well, for no reason really. You’ve just decided it won’t.” I look out at the lake and back to her. “I think this won’t work, because we’ve been together for a few weeks, and you still don’t trust me. You keep trying to sabotage this. You’re looking for problems where there aren’t any, and you’re already one foot out the door.” I pull on the hem of my T-shirt because I feel like I’m boiling over with angry energy. “This is over, because even if I could talk you down from this, I don’t know how I can trust that you’re not going to do the same thing six months from now. Or two years from now.” I take a step back on the dock. “So”—I throw my hands up like Sidney has me at gunpoint, which is how it feels—“I surrender. You win, Sidney. It’s over. Just like you knew it would be. So like always, your plan worked.”

  DAY 50

  Sidney

  I wait until four o’clock to take the car and drive into town. I’ll stop at the store and get some vacation jerky in case I need an alibi. Another one. The Riverton Police Department is in a large brick building that is long and low and also houses the city hall, fire department, and community room. The building is quiet and empty, and an older woman sits behind a desk, a pane of glass separating her from me. Maybe she’s worried about people sneezing on her, like at a buffet? Oh, right. She’s worried about the criminals who come here. Like me. When I step up she pushes open a window to greet me.

  I smile. “Could I see Officer Jennings, please?”

  She glances up at me but she’s mostly looking at her computer. “In regards to?”

  “I met him last night.” Her eyes snap up to mine and I realize it sounds like I’m some weirdo who met him at a party and is now stalking him at his job. Movement catches my eye and I notice the men in uniforms standing behind her, shifting uncomfortably. “Oh. No. I mean, not like I met him. Just that he arrested me. Well, not arrested, but I mean…” I rest my fingertips on the edge of the title counter in front of her window. “I was vandalizing someone’s yard. Not even vandalizing really, I was just forking it. You know, sticking plastic silverware into it?” I smile at her but she doesn’t return it. “Harmless, really.” My voice has pitched up nervously. “And yeah, it was going to be in a vulgar shape, but I hadn’t finished, so it just looked like a bunch of forks.” The woman—Gayle, according to her nameplate—looks from me to the group of men gathered behind her. “So anyway, she called the cops. And he was the cop. Jennings, I mean.” Why can’t I just stop talking? “So that’s how I met him. He took me home.” Oh no. “To my home! My home!”

  Gayle’s face has gone from concerned to amused, and she pushes her rolling chair away from the desk and walks to a nearby door, turning back to me to say, “Wait here.”

  The two cops standing by the doorway back to the right have now gained a third person, and they’re all trying really hard not to stare at me, but I feel a little like a zoo animal on the other side of this glass. They snicker and mumble something as Jennings walks in through the hallway. He lands a punch to an older guy’s arm as he passes. He’s in normal clothes—khaki pants and a collared shirt—and I can see just how young he is when he’s out of uniform. He stands in the spot where Gayle’s chair is. She hasn’t returned. Traumatized, probably.

  “Miss Walters.” He gives me a tiny nod.

  “Officer Jennings.” I look to the men behind him and try to keep my voice serious and detached, but I’m not entirely sure what I came here to ask or what the formal way to request it is.

  Jennings raises a brow at me. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I just … wanted to check on my arrest.”

  “To check on it?”

  I drum my fingers along the countertop. “Yes. To see what I need to do next.”

  My nerves are absolutely out of control. It’s entirely possible that I’m going to throw up right here. I suppose it would make a good case for keeping the glass barrier closed. But Jennings does something I’m not expecting. He laughs. It’s loud and long, and barrels out of him. The men behind him smile, like they, too, are amused by my predicament.

  What an asshole.

  Something on my face must tell him I think so, because he suddenly stops, his face turning apologetic. “I’m sorry. I’ve just never had anyone so impatient to be arrested.”

  “Impatient?” I cross my arms over my chest. “I just don’t want you showing up at my house. And if I need to make arrangements, I want to do that. I don’t want my parents to have to pack up all of my stuff. And I need to talk to my coach and see if criminal charges will get me kicked off of the team before I even start.”

  “The team?”

  “Swim team,” I clarify. “I’m swimming at Oakwood this year, if I’m not in jail.”

  He nods. “Well, the good news is you wo
n’t have to call your coach.”

  I moan. “Oh my god, do you send something? Do colleges automatically get notified about this sort of thing? This just keeps getting better, I mean…”

  Jennings cuts me off. “Sidney.” Hearing my first name is comforting somehow—it makes me feel less like the criminal delinquent I’ve become. “No charges have been pressed.”

  “She didn’t come in yet? I thought she was supposed to do that.” A tiny spark of hope lights within me. “Is there a time limit or something? If she doesn’t show up by a certain date is it too late?” How long can Nadine legally leave me living in an anxious limbo between normal citizen and official criminal?

  “She did call this afternoon. She won’t be pressing any charges. I was going to call you, but…” He looks amused again. “I didn’t realize you’d be so anxious.”

  “That’s because you don’t know me.”

  “I think you should give up the pranks, Miss Walters.” Officer Jennings smiles at me and shakes his head. “I don’t think you’re cut out for a life of crime.”

  I nod. “That won’t be a problem.”

  * * *

  I’m having a WWMD moment as I pull into Nadine’s driveway.Hopefully this isn’t one of those situations where I’m not supposed to approach her. Part of me thinks I should just cut my losses, never see her again, and call it a day, but what would Mom do? She’d apologize. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’m probably not going to sleep until I do the same. The guilt of knowing what I did and that Nadine knows it’s me is threatening to eat me alive.

  Nadine’s front porch faces the road, and I’ve never actually stood on it. When we needed something—which was rarely—we always went to the back door, the one closest to our houses. I knock twice, and wait. It feels like I’ve swum a team relay by the time I see Nadine’s scowling face through the narrow glass pane that runs down the center of the door. She cracks the door enough to wedge her body into it, but no farther. As if I’m going to burst into her house and set it on fire or something.

  “Sidney.” She looks behind her and back to me. “Haven’t you done enough here?”

  “I just wanted to apologize.”

  Her voice is gruff and annoyed. “Apology accepted.” The door is half closed when I put a hand on the knob. She looks from my hand to my face.

  “And to say thank you for not pressing charges. I know you could have, and I’m just…” I take my hand off of the door and she closes it another inch. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not the one to thank…” She jerks her head to the side, and through the crack of the door I can see Lindsay standing in the doorway to their kitchen. “But you know while you’re here, maybe we should talk about how you can fix all of this. You know, those forks aren’t going to pull themselves out. And my yard still smells like mashed potatoes when the sprinklers go off…” I hear a snort and see Lindsay throw her hand over her mouth.

  “Mom, let’s just leave it alone.” Lindsay pushes past her mom and grabs my elbow. “We’ll go pull some forks out, okay?” She pats her mom on the shoulder and pulls the door shut behind her, pulling me along with her toward the side of the house.

  We’re walking in silence toward the backyard, her hand still on my elbow, when I say, “Why are you home? I thought you were at school during the week.”

  “Asher called me this morning.”

  Wow. Heat fills my cheeks. That was … quick. I pull my elbow away from her in a swift jerk. “He wastes no time.”

  “He didn’t ask me to come back, he just asked me to talk to my mom. About—” She waves a hand toward the yard, still littered with white plastic. “What went down last night.” She shakes her head and there’s the hint of a smile on her lips. “It’s easier to talk my mom into something in person. I’m sorry she threatened you. It was a bit much for forks and mashed potatoes.” She reaches down and pulls a white fork out of the grass.

  Lindsay is the reason I’m not going to be a forking criminal. And Asher. Even after everything I said last night, he fixed this.

  I bend down and pull a fork out of the ground, and then another. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that. I mean, I really appreciate that you did that. Like, really appreciate it.”

  “It’s no big deal.” She tosses some forks into a little pile and I follow.

  “I’ve never really been that nice to you.”

  She smiles and shrugs. “You’re not mean, though.”

  I laugh.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m just getting a lot of really glowing endorsements this summer.” I throw a few more forks on the pile. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  “For what?”

  “You know what.” She gives me a sideways glance. “I know you saw me and Asher.”

  I don’t say anything, just keep pulling forks out of the ground. “It’s old news.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve always felt weird about it.” There’s a beat of silence as she grabs another fork. “My boyfriend broke up with me that summer. I was on this medication that made me gain ten pounds and—well, I don’t think it was a coincidence. Anyway, Asher was nice to me, and…” She shrugs. “I knew he liked you. And I knew it was a crappy thing to do, but not until after…”

  “You didn’t exactly force him.”

  Lindsay laughs. “What fourteen-year-old guy is going to stop a girl from kissing him?”

  Asher. I had thought Asher would. But she’s right, how stupid was that? He and I weren’t even together.

  It’s hard to blame Lindsay. She feels bad for kissing Asher because she knew I liked him. She thought he liked me. But I knew she liked him, too. And I wouldn’t have felt bad if I had kissed him. I just didn’t have the guts to do it like she did. Maybe that’s what I’ve really been mad about all of these years: that she had the guts to do something I didn’t. “It’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry my mom kicked you guys out. I know she’s a total whack job sometimes but…” Lindsay looks to the house like she’s checking for Nadine to be lurking at a window. “It’s been a rough year or two. My parents split, and my mom’s in the house by herself, and honestly, she’s never wanted renters here. My dad wanted to rent the houses.” She stubs her toe into the grass. “I think kicking you guys out was just a big ‘eff you’ to my dad.” She gives me a sad smile. “Sorry you guys got caught in the middle of it.”

  “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  She glances at the house again. “I should probably be more upset, but honestly … some people just aren’t meant to be together.”

  Lindsay and I pick forks out of the yard for another hour, making small talk about her first year at college, but none of it can distract me from the words that won’t leave my head: some people just aren’t meant to be together. People like Asher and me. We’re not doomed because he’s out to get me, we’re doomed because he was right last night: down the road I’d screw this up somehow. At least now it’s done with, before things go too far, before we hurt our families or each other more than we already have. But if it’s the right decision, then why does it still hurt so much?

  DAY 52

  Asher

  I’m probably not in the right mind-set to talk to my dad, but I’m in a screw it, there’s nothing left to lose kind of mood, so I’m going to run with it. He’s by the picnic table in the yard, spreading newspapers and trash bags out so he can clean the fish he caught this morning with Tom. After what has been dubbed the fish incident, Mom hasn’t let him anywhere near the kitchen with fish this summer.

  He’s hauling his cooler from the ground up onto the gray bench, when I stand across from him.

  “Come to help?”

  “Can’t. Traumatized.” I hold my hands up in the air. “I may never eat fish again. I was hoping we could talk for a minute before you start slicing and dicing?” I take a seat on the long gray bench.

  Dad sits down next to his cooler and when he looks at me, his whole
face changes. Something like fear and panic wash over him in an instant. “Oh god.” He looks up at the house and back to me. “You’re not. I mean, Sidney’s not. She’s not pregnant or something, is she?”

  “She’s not—what?” I try to physically shake away the confusion and shock that has slapped me in the face. “What are you talking about?”

  Dad is visibly relieved. “I’m sorry, I just—the way that you looked. I thought this was something big. Something bad.”

  “And your first thought was that I knocked up Sidney?”

  Dad winces. “This isn’t my finest parenting moment.”

  “You knew we were together, though?” I wince. “Dating together, not accidental-pregnancy together,” I clarify.

  “I know. We know.” Dad glances up at the house again. “Your mom thinks it’s adorable you think we don’t. Maybe don’t tell her about this little freakout, okay? Not unless you want to go back to an open-door policy around the house.”

  “We broke up last night, so that won’t be a problem.”

  When my dad is disturbed by something—really disturbed—he has a very specific look. His eyebrows collapse into sharp mountains, and his mouth twists up. He shakes his head three times. No more, no less. “I’m sorry to hear that. I really thought this was the year things turned around for good.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head. “Not now. Maybe some other time.” I give him a sideways glance. “Over a beer?”

  Dad smiles. “Sure.”

  “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the apprenticeship with Mr. Ockler this fall.”

  At this, Dad is once again his cheery self. “You finally get it squared away?”

  “I don’t want to do it.” I stop him before he can interrupt me. Before I lose my nerve to tell him everything. “Not just the apprenticeship. Everything. I don’t want to study finance, and I don’t want to manage anyone’s retirement fund. It’s not what I want to do.”