Our Little Secret(8)

“Shit, LJ, isn’t that your old man?” Ezra hunched over the steering wheel.

“So busted,” I breathed. Through the open window of the truck, we could hear that HP’s whistling had stopped. The three of us gaped at him from twenty feet away—even Lacy, who had no knowledge of my dad.

“How are you, Mr. Petitjean?” HP’s voice didn’t waver.

My dad jumped and turned, hugging his blue glass bottle.

“Oh, HP. How’re you doing? Are you loitering, disturbing the peace?” Dad laughed at his own question, his reedy shoulders raking up and down.

“I’m off to grad, sir. We’re going camping.”

“Oh, the camping trip. Yes, I heard about this one. What a grand idea. Sleeping under Andromeda, the old twinkling face of Cassiopeia?”

HP can’t have known what my dad was talking about, but his expression remained steady.

“Actually, young man, I was going to ask you, between us boys, to watch out for Angela. She’s a bright girl with an exciting future. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

HP nodded.

“And do you know of her plans for college?”

He didn’t because I had none.

Dad’s narrow head tilted. “Did you want to ask me?”

“Not about that, sir, no. But could you maybe help a guy out?”

No way. No way was HP going to ask my dad to buy us beer.

“It’s grad, after all . . .” I heard HP say before my dad blocked our view of him and everything became muffled.

I watched my dad scratch the top of his messy hair, take hold of HP by one shoulder and lean in close. Then he walked back into the store. HP put both arms straight up into the air and grinned at us, lowering them quickly again as my dad reemerged and handed HP a case of Budweiser. “One each, remember, and none for my daughter.” He strolled towards his car with his vermouth.

“Legend!” shouted Ezra when HP got back in the truck. “That’s your best one yet!”

HP scrambled past my knees and wedged himself back in next to his girlfriend. He yanked at his buckle, whooping. “I don’t know why you complain about your folks so much, Little John. Your dad’s awesome.”

“What did you say to him at the end?”

“I just told him the truth. What? You never thought of that before?”

“Why is it always so easy . . . ?” I began, but Ezra bounced us off the curb of the parking lot and onto the highway, and I never finished the thought.

“What if we get pulled over?” Lacy asked as we raced away.

“We won’t.” HP cranked the stereo and shifted to look at me. “All good, John? Are you mad I asked your dad?”

I shrugged. “My parents understand you better than they do me. Or just plain like you better.”

“What’s not to like?” he yelled as he passed me a can and slapped me on the collarbone. “And it’s not a competition. Drink this and stop thinking.”

“Big Bad Grad!” Ezra shouted, honking his horn. We roared along the highway away from town. I sipped a Budweiser and wondered how I would ever in my life be able to leave this place without HP, since the world rolled open only for him.


For a small town with a graduating class of less than fifty, the crowd at Elbow Lake was already edging a hundred. Two docks led out from the shore, rickety and rusty-nailed. To the left of the beach, a forest began, and grads of years gone by had built a bunch of tree platforms in there with rope ladders up to them. Hundreds of lanterns hung from branches—unlit, spiderwebbed and rusting—and the forest bark was scarred with an alphabet of former alumni. We drove towards the scattering of tents, veering off the track and over the grass, our shoulders bumping as we hit potholes in the turf.

“What are we sleeping in?” Lacy glanced from face to face.

“We’ll sleep when we’re dead, Lace,” said Ezra, and he threw the truck into park. He shut off the engine, clambering out onto the hood. “The party’s arrived!” He reveled in the sunlight, his black hair cut short at the sides in a fauxhawk, his teeth white against his tanned face. The swim team whooped in response, swelling towards him like a tide.

“Have you brought a tent?” Lacy tucked hair behind her ear and pressed her knees together.

“Too late now,” said HP. “We’ll be fine. I have my man blanket.”

“It’s plaid,” I told her.

I pushed open my door and got out of the truck. Ezra swooped down and grabbed my arm, hauling me upwards towards him. He waltzed me around on the hood of his truck in a high-kneed cowboy swirl, the curve of his bicep pressing tight against my shoulder. He smelled of laundry soap. On the second spin I saw Lacy and HP turn their faces up at us—her brow milk-pale, his darkening.

I sat on the dock for a lot of the afternoon, dangling my toes in the water. Bugs skittered on the surface, spindly with heat. Classmates thundered behind me along the dock to launch into the cool of the lake, and from time to time HP came and sat next to me to skim stones.

“I’d push you in,” he said, “but I think you’d drown under the weight of your T-shirt. Why no bathing suit?”

“I’m not like Lacy.”

“Do you shower with your eyes closed?” He stood and turned, balancing on his toes on the dock edge. His stomach muscles were tight, and his arms wound windmills to balance. “You’re way prettier than you think, Little John. You have this whole funky-ass style thing going on and you don’t even know it. Why else would Ez be moving in on you?” I must have bunched up my eyebrows at him because he added, “Christ, you walk around with your eyes closed, too.” He teetered then backflipped into the lake.