Our Little Secret(7)
“Yes, Dad. It’s a camping trip, with tents and sleeping.”
“And we’re sure that HP will keep a good eye on you, are we?”
“Of course we are, David. He adores her. Doesn’t he, Angela?”
I shrugged.
“He adores her. You should see the way he looks at her.” Mom sighed and put her hand to her bony chest, the edge of the knife blade glinting near her chin. “Although frankly, honey, you could make more of an effort. Is that a boy’s sweater? And why do you insist on wearing your lovely dark bangs so they hang over your superior bone structure? If I were to take a photo of you right now and show it to you in ten years, you’d be horrified.”
“You can only go if you’ve done all your homework,” Dad said.
“I’ll have graduated by then!”
“And if you have everything in place with college plans. Did I tell you I heard back from Reggie McIntosh? He’s head of Classics at Oxford.” He abandoned his search for crackers and rubbed his hands together while I yawned. “You might be in with a chance for this fall if you keep your head down. Reggie’s working it so you take your freshman year over there—he owes me a favor, so he’s all but sneaking you in the back door.”
I drained the last of my yogurt.
“Oxford University, England—get excited, it doesn’t get any more Ivy League than that! You have such potential, my dear . . .” He trailed off.
If he was waiting for thanks he didn’t get it. I couldn’t care less about Ivy League schools. The only reason I went along with his push for academia was because it got me out of their crosshairs.
“We can talk about it properly another time . . . Angela? Look at me. Here’s what I have to say about this camping trip: If all your work is done . . .” He raised a pale index finger. “. . . and you keep your wits about you, it should be acceptable. But be careful: I know how teenage boys think. I was one of them, too, you know.”
“No, you weren’t, David.” Mom put her knife down and wiped her hands on her hips. She turned to me. “You can go, darling.”
I turned Les Misérables back up. It had been easier than I’d thought.
So if all the other girls, including my mom, were crazy about HP, how did I feel about him? I know that’s what you’re thinking, Novak.
Was I in love with him? My mother would say I was, but she also drove us to prom with the theme tune from Titanic playing on her car stereo, so don’t believe anything she says. Why was it so crucial that I define my feelings for him? If you ask me if he dominated my teenage years, that’s an easier one to answer. The truth is I don’t know if I was ever like the other girls. I knew HP too well. He was handsome; I liked seeing him with his shirt off; but when I caught myself looking at him, it felt kind of . . . obscene. We were friends. We were at ease and had no need to decipher ourselves. Not, at least, until after the camping trip.
chapter
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3
We drove out to Elbow Lake in Ezra’s beat-up old Chevy, Korn pumping from the stereo. Four of us had crammed into the front bench seat—Ezra driving; HP next to him; HP’s current girlfriend, Lacy; and me.
Lacy’s thigh pressed against mine, the sweat between us off-putting. Every now and then one of us would smear it off our legs while looking the other way. I didn’t want to absorb anything she secreted. Her shoulders looked like moose antlers but, according to Ezra, she did a “mad nasty dance.” Actually I wasn’t sure what that was, but it sounded like a reason for an eighteen-year-old boy to date you.
For June, the sky blazed blue with the promise of a great summer. Looking back, I see I was swept up with everyone’s pure potential. We were done—free to go in whatever direction we chose, with a whole summer dedicated to nothing but one another. There was a camaraderie, a unity in our not-yet-knowing, and it was the first time I’d ever felt truly a part of something. Come fall, our grad class would hit the ground like marbles and scatter in fifty different directions, but for now we were free-falling. There are so few times like that in your life—when nothing is marked or limited by loss, when the possibilities seem endless and hopeful. I wanted to shout out loud at the world’s infinity but with all the windows down in the truck, Lacy’s long dark hair kept whipping into my mouth.
“You bring your bikini, Little John?” shouted Ezra, his dark eyebrows raised above the rim of his aviator sunglasses. “I’m hoping it has polka dots. You could totally pull that off.”
HP shook his head and put his arm around Lacy, his hand grazing my shoulder, too. “She’ll have brought her oversized men’s T-shirt.” He winked at me while I glared at him.
“Hidden treasures,” said Ezra, nudging HP and passing him a beer. “I like a challenge.”
They clinked beer cans. Even Lacy laughed.
“You’re going to need a better map, boys.” I pushed past Lacy, squashing her back in her seat as I grabbed HP’s beer from his hand. A crescent of amber lilted around the rim of the can, warmed by HP’s mouth. As I sipped it, one elbow out of the window, I noted that Lacy wasn’t smiling anymore.
We stopped at the liquor store on the outskirts of town. You’d think it would be hard for four underage kids to get beer, but with HP it took about thirty seconds. When a fifty-year-old man in beige slacks walked out of the store carrying a bottle of vermouth, I swore and slouched farther down inside the truck, keeping one eye on HP.