The Last Boy and Girl in the World (2 page)

Morgan gasped and pushed me on the shoulders, sending me backward onto the carpet. “Oh my God, Keeley! That's so wrong! How could you even say that?” But she was laughing, because she knew I was joking. I was always saying crazy stuff like that, taking it too far.
Too far
was my default setting.

I flailed my arms and legs like a turtle stuck on her back. “Because that's what best friends are for!”

Morgan wore the tiniest hint of a smile as she reached to pull me up. “I'll text Elise and tell her we'll be over soon.”

While she did, I pulled a peach sock with lavender stripes from her laundry basket but couldn't find its match. I went over to her dresser and opened the top drawer.

I had to dig a little to find it. It was underneath a plush stuffed chick with his wings glued around a plastic egg. There'd been a chocolate heart inside that egg. Morgan had given me half on our drive home from hanging out with Wes during Easter weekend. It was milk chocolate with Rice Krispies, my favorite. We ate the chocolate and drove home with the chick propped up on her dashboard, its googly eyes googling with every bump in the road.

Wes gave Morgan tons of little presents like that all the time—cheesy greeting cards, silk roses, key chains, perfume, candy. Elise said that showed what good boyfriend material he was, though I doubt he paid for any of it since his parents owned a drugstore. Before their breakup, Morgan prominently displayed the gifts around her room. When they disappeared, I assumed she'd thrown them away. But they were all there, crammed in the drawer. I lingered over them until Morgan chucked her phone aside. Then I quickly pushed the drawer shut.

“Don't you think this is a huge overreaction?” Morgan said, half underneath her bed, reaching for her galoshes. I wasn't sure if she knew what I'd seen or not. I certainly wasn't going to say anything about it. “I mean . . . I get that it's supposed to be a crazy storm, but Levi asking Key Club to come out on a Sunday morning to stack sandbags seems crazy.”

I'd had the same thought myself. The river flooded at least a few times each spring, and even with the rain that had already fallen, it hadn't added up to anything disastrous. The people in town who lived closest to it knew to take certain precautions when it was supposed to storm, like parking their cars on higher ground and moving their patio furniture indoors. It was more annoying than dangerous.

“Yup,” I said. “And also, Levi didn't
ask
. He basically
demanded
. I would have told him to screw off if I wasn't sure he'd kick me out for insubordination or whatever.”

Our high school didn't have a ton of clubs, and so I needed to list Key Club on my college apps. I was even considering running for president next year, because my guidance counselor said admissions tended to favor candidates who held leadership positions over kids who just listed a bunch of activities.

“I wouldn't put it past him,” Morgan said, her lip curling. “He's the total worst.”

“Well, I'm choosing to think of it this way. If the river
does
flood, we'll have done our part to protect our soon-to-be-inherited beachfront property.”

Morgan grinned at that, spinning around to face me. “Thirty-two more days until we're officially seniors.”

“Thirty-two more days,” I echoed, just as excited. At that moment, Wes was the only obstacle I saw between me and Morgan having another terrific summer together. And whether or not she kept his crappy trinkets hidden away in her drawer, he was still, thankfully, her ex.

•  •  •

Back in the old days, Aberdeen was primarily a countryside vacation destination for the rich residents of Waterford City, thirty miles downriver. It was cabins and summer cottages and pine groves. People swam in the summer, skied and ice-skated in the winter. My dad even has a vintage postcard showing people in old-fashioned bathing suits, striped umbrellas, and canvas beach chairs, enjoying our beautiful riverfront.

A hundred years later, the seniors of Aberdeen High School still swam in the exact spot the tourists once flocked to, where the bank stretched as wide and flat as an ocean beach, complete with sand that glittered in the sunshine. This wasn't the only swim spot in Aberdeen, but it was the best. Except it wasn't as perfect as the old postcard because of the long-abandoned lumber mill that anchored the end of the beach.

The spot designated for juniors, where I spent nearly every day last summer, was a quarter mile upstream from the senior spot. The beach there wasn't pure sand like the seniors had, more a mixture of sand and dirt and pine needles. You always had to have a blanket down, but it was still nice. A rope swing looped around a fat branch of a tree that grew sideways out over the water. I'm not sure who put it up. It had been around forever.

Last summer, hardly any of the other girls tried it. They were scared the rope would break or their bikini tops would fly off when they hit the water. But after a couple of swings on the first sunny day, I had it down. Which knot to anchor my hands on, exactly when to let go so I'd hit the deepest part of the river, where the water was the coolest. I even took to screaming out something dumb to make everyone laugh whenever I'd make the plunge. Like this one time, I shouted “Super-absorbency!” because Elise had just admitted that she'd once worn a tampon
and
a pad while swimming at a church retreat, because she feared leaking in the water. The other girls there that day had no idea what I was talking about, but they laughed just the same. The boys shook their heads or groaned. They never knew what to make of me.

The sophomores and freshmen were relegated to a swim spot even farther upstream, near the highway overpass. They had to pull weeds to clear a place for their towels and pick up the trash tossed out of passing cars. The location sucked for those reasons, plus there were tons of plants, slimy reeds, and other crap you didn't want touching you when you swam.

Anyway, that's where we were told to show up for sandbagging duty.

Morgan parked her car near the overpass and we followed the flow of students toward two dump trucks full of sandbags and a rapidly growing group of volunteers. Obviously, other school groups besides Key Club had been summoned to help. Adults came, too. People's parents, off-duty policemen, my second-grade teacher, Mr. Gunther. Even Mayor Aversano showed up, dressed like a complete tool in a suit shirt and dress slacks, with his slicked-back hair. He did have enough sense to swap his dress shoes for a pair of work boots, but I still rolled my eyes.

At exactly seven thirty, Sheriff Hamrick climbed up on one of the dump truck beds, clicked on his bullhorn, and asked everyone to gather around. Then he extended a hand to the mayor and Aversano's dress pants stretched dangerously tight over his butt as he lunged up. Aversano took the bullhorn and started talking but no one could hear him. Sheriff Hamrick had to lean over and show him the trigger to press to make the thing work.

I laughed. Hard. Morgan clapped her hand over my mouth.

“Thanks, everyone, for coming out today. Obviously, we're hoping that the weather forecasters are wrong, the way they tend to be about ninety-eight percent of the time.”

A few adults chuckled at that lameness. I remember thinking, hoping, that I would never turn into the kind of person who thought weather jokes were funny.

As Mayor Aversano went on, his voice took on a totally fake somber tone. My dad had been the one to first alert me to his penchant for doing this, after the mayor announced his most recent budget for Aberdeen, where he was “forced” to cut anything considered “nonessential” (quotations used to highlight his bullcrap). Since then, I always noticed it, a performance about as believable as our high school drama productions.

“. . . but we must be ready in case they aren't, and do our part to protect our citizens from harm. I'm going to turn things over to Sheriff Hamrick to explain how today's going to work.”

Morgan and Elise leaned their heads together.

Elise whispered, “I seriously can't believe he hasn't called you yet. It's been two weeks, right?”

“Almost,” Morgan whispered back.

“It must be a pride thing. Maybe he's waiting to hear from you first?” Then Elise gave Morgan's topknot an encouraging little squeeze.

I burst in between them and grabbed each by the hand. “Let's go down to the senior spot. It's almost ours, anyway. And this place is giving me freshman-year flashbacks of those pink bikini bottoms that always gave me a wedgie.”

“But Sheriff Hamrick hasn't finished his instructions yet,” Elise said. “How will we know what to do?”

“What's to know?” I said, pulling her along. “Take sandbag, pass sandbag, repeat.” It blew my mind how often Elise brought Wes up after the breakup. I knew she meant well, but why poke a bruise as it's trying to heal?

I think Morgan probably picked up on my Wes interference, because she walked a little bit ahead of Elise and me and changed the subject. “Eww,” she said, pointing as we neared the bank of the junior swim spot. “It looks like chocolate milk.”

The river normally ran clear. Not crystal, but close. But the previous storms had churned the water up big-time and it was so high, you couldn't see the tail end of the rope swing in the murky water. The current pulled it taut, like a fishing line had hooked a dolphin.

“Okay, so maybe sandbags are a good idea after all.” I zipped my hoodie up to my chin, lifted the hood over my head, and stuffed my hands in my pockets to keep them warm. The morning sun was gone now, and the clouds hung low and oppressive, like someone's basement ceiling.

We walked to the senior spot. Another group of volunteers came from the opposite direction. Then everyone fanned out. I sat down on a rock in the sand and let out a big fat yawn.

“Keeley,” Morgan whispered.

I ignored what I thought was her cue for me to stand up, even though I probably should have stood up if I wanted to look like someone who should be elected Key Club president next year. But I was tired. Normally, Morgan and I slept in on Sundays until lunch. And the dreary weather wasn't helping.

Morgan then knelt down in front of me and practically inserted her entire head inside my hood.

“Can I help you?”

The tip of her nose pressing into mine, she said, “Look left.”

I turned my head.

And there was Jesse Ford.

His back was to me, but I still recognized him because Jesse had the cutest mop of wavy blond hair that was always the perfect mess. The pieces in front were long, almost chin-length, and he used their natural curl to keep them tucked behind his ears. That's how he usually wore it, except when he played soccer. Then he'd steal a rubber band off some teacher's desk and pull all his hair up into a little tuft at the top of his head, a man bun I guess you could call it. I know this is truly a look that only very cute and/or confident guys can successfully get away with. Put Jesse Ford in that slim minority. In fact, I weirdly liked it up in the man bun, because it showed off the million different shades of blond over his head. My hair is also blond, but it's all the same color—pale yellow, like a stick of butter. Jesse's is an entire box of Crayola crayons devoted to the shade. For example, some strands are as golden as the tops of the cafeteria corn muffins, some darker like pine sap, some as bright white as the sand that poured out of the splits in our sandbags that day.

Morgan quickly pushed my hood off my head and mussed my hair, pulling out a few stray pieces from the little nubby ponytail I had at the nape of my neck so they wisped around my face. She unzipped my hoodie ever so slightly, and pushed up my sleeves so they were at my elbows. She took a step back and smiled, pleased, and then beckoned to me to stand up.

I did, but only for a second, because as soon as I got to my feet, I pretended to faint dead away from happiness, flopping trust-fall style into Morgan's arms when I knew for sure that Jesse's back was still turned. Morgan barely managed to keep me upright. We both busted up laughing.

“What's so funny?” Elise called out from Morgan's other side.

Morgan pushed me off her and her cheeks turned rose-petal pink. It didn't matter that I was the one embarrassing myself. Morgan always blushed by proxy. She leaned over and said quietly to Elise, “Nothing. Just Keeley being Keeley.”

I watched nonchalantly as Jesse and some of the other guys on the soccer team kicked an empty Gatorade bottle across the ground. I guess they'd been asked to volunteer too. After fifteen minutes or so, the chitchat hushed and the sandbags started to come down the human chain.

Jesse shot me a quick smile as he turned to pass me the first one. Aberdeen High was small, with only about fifty kids in each grade. I'd had a class with him last year, Spanish II, but we'd never had an actual conversation before. Not in English, anyway. Still, I couldn't tell if he recognized me, or if he smiled because everyone knew who
he
was.

All the volunteers worked in painful silence for the first half hour.

“Do you think we're almost done?” I joke-whispered to Morgan as I heaped the next sandbag into her arms. The first few hadn't been so bad, but I swore they were getting heavier and heavier.

“Don't make me laugh, Keeley!” Morgan panted as she twisted toward Elise and passed the sandbag on. “My abs already hurt.”

I gasped. “Oh my God, what if we're both so out of shape that we end up getting totally ripped from doing this, like two professional—”

“Hey! Watch out!”

I whipped around to Jesse lobbing his sandbag into my not-waiting, not-ready arms. I screeched and jumped out of the way because if that thing had hit my toes, it would have killed. Everyone around us turned to look.

But his sandbag didn't land on my feet.

It was never going to. Jesse had a hold on it the whole time, and he pulled it back at the last second, a perfect fake-out.