The Leaving Season (10 page)

“You tired?”

“Mm-hmm. Yeah.”

“I'll read you a story.”

I heard a rustle of paper and I started to protest. “No porn, please.”

His laugh was light. “No porn.” He cleared his throat and adopted a Serious Broadcaster's voice. “When last we saw Superman, he was being crushed by Lex Luthor in outer space.” Then he became Lee again. “In this first panel, Superman's squished between two asteroids the size of houses and he's gritting his teeth like he's constipated.”

“What . . . !”

His eyes, meeting mine, danced merrily. “I gotta say, whenever Superman's in trouble, he looks like he's shitting bricks.”

“Oh my god, Lee,” I said with a laugh. I felt my cheeks warm with a blush again, although thankfully not as much as with the
Playboy
magazine.

“I can stop if you want,” he said.

“No, no. Don't stop,” I said quickly. “It's fun. I like it.” As Lee started to describe the comic panels again, I felt sleep descend like a blanket.

“. . . and then
pow! Bam!
Superman's fist flies through the air, cracking the asteroid apart . . .”

I nestled my head against my knees and curled my hair over my neck.

“‘Think you can destroy
me
, Superman? Ha!'” Lee's voice rose and fell, adding a cackle here for the villain and a basso profundo there for our hero. It was like listening to a radio play but one being performed just for me.

“I kind of like Lex Luthor,” I heard him say at one point.

I answered him drowsily. “Hmm? He's the bad guy. You can't like him.”

“Nah. He's just misunderstood.”

I woke the next morning laying on my side with a hooded sweatshirt—Lee's, I realized—draped over me like a blanket. Sunlight warmed my cheeks through the hole in the tree fort's roof. In the corner opposite me, Lee was curled into a fetal position, wearing just a short-sleeved T-shirt with his
jeans. He was using the stack of comic books as a pillow; his hands gripped the Superman he'd been reading aloud to me.

I had no idea when he'd given me his sweatshirt, but he must have been freezing all night. I stood and stretched, feeling every ache and cramp from sleeping overnight in a rotting tree house. In the sunlight, it looked like Tarzan's home in a jungle. The leaves and vines crawling up the fort were slick with rain from the night before and the place smelled like peanut butter.

I inched closer to Lee and saw three empty Saran wrappers and one half-eaten sandwich next to the comics. A ring of strawberry jam lined his lips and a speck of sleep drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth. I was about to wake him when I had a better idea. I found my cell phone and snapped a picture of him fast asleep.

I tapped the screen to send it to his cell along with the message,
thx 4 great nite.

I was in chemistry a few days later when I got Lee's next text:
movies 2nite, sneak in back

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to put my phone on vibrate, so it beeped loudly.

“Whose phone was that?” the teacher roared, startling me. I quickly stuffed my phone back into my purse, but it was too late. His bald head swiveled from one side of the room to the other and he cast a sharp eye for the culprit. Class was held in the only lecture hall at the school, a room
with a pitched floor so we had to look down at the white board and giant periodic table. Unlike conventional classrooms, we couldn't hide behind anyone in chemistry. Mr. Mitchell could see every single one of us.

And he saw me.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Mitchell,” I started to say, but he cut me off.

“No need, Middie,” he said, his voice softening when he realized it was my phone. “Please be aware of it for the future.”

The class began to murmur and Mr. Mitchell rapped his knuckles on the podium for attention. “That was not license for all of you to start chitchatting! Especially after that last exam.” He glared at everyone and went back to the board.

Behind me I heard whispers and then someone said, “Be nice. This must be really hard for her.”

Another voice clucked. “She doesn't look that upset to me.”

It hurt to hear that, even if one of the girls was defending me. I wanted to turn to them and say,
Do I have to be crying constantly in order to feel pain? Do you think it's easy to avoid every tiny thing that reminds me of Nate every moment?
But I didn't. I kept my head down and let my hair fall across my eyes, willing myself not to weep.

A few hours later I met Lee outside the movie theater, one of the newest buildings in town, with four screens and a very busy concession stand.

“Not the back door,” he cautioned me, “the side one.” When I found him in the parking lot near his Vespa, he clarified, “Everyone who wants to sneak into the movies goes through the emergency exit in the back.” He led me toward a giant Dumpster, which was about fifteen feet from a nondescript black metal door with no handle on the exterior, so when it was shut, it blended in with the rest of the building.

Sure enough, as we watched for a few minutes, a couple of ten-year-old-boys tried to sneak in through the emergency exit of one of the theaters. Almost instantaneously, they were escorted out by one of the ushers in a maroon vest and matching pants.

“Don't worry,” Lee said. “That won't be us.”

“God, I hope not.” The thought of being chased away like a stray dog sounded humiliating. “So what do we do? How do we get in?”

We walked over to the wall and Lee grinned maniacally as if I were about to join a secret club of mental patients. “Watch this door. The ushers take the trash out between movies. You have about thirty seconds from the time they walk out, go over to the Dumpster, and then turn around.” He wobbled his hand in the air. “More or less.”

I tried to stay calm on the outside while my heart was beating hard in my chest. I was a good girl. Good girls didn't sneak into the movies without paying. “Then what?”

His smile creased the corners of his eyes. “So serious, Meredith Daniels. I'll take you into battle with me any day.”

“Just go on, before I lose my nerve.”

“By the way, I appreciate that you wore all black. Just like a ninja.”

I dropped my arms to my sides. “I didn't know!” Black cotton pants and a black tank just seemed easiest to put together. And yeah, maybe I was trying to think stealthy.

“Once we get in, follow me to the right.” Lee gestured in the air, drawing an invisible map. “Stick close to the wall until we get through the employee entrance and into the lobby. Then we're golden. We're behind the ticket dude and we can go anywhere we want.” He paused and chewed on his lip. “You sure you're ready for this?”

“I'm a ninja, remember?” I waved my hands in the air as if I were doing a martial arts move, karate chop.

“If you say
Hai-ya!
I'm leaving you right here, right now.”

Next to us, the door clicked open and I heard Lee cheer quietly. “Sweet! Tiny girl, big bag. Let's go.” He grabbed my hand and flattened himself against the wall. Our hips were side by side, our shoulders pressed together. My nose twitched as I smelled cigarette smoke in Lee's hair and on his clothes.
Liza smokes. They were probably together.

The metal door swung open fully and the girl taking out the trash kicked a wooden wedge under it to prop it open. She was about five feet tall with spiky pink hair and lots of piercings. She struggled with the bag but eventually managed to fling it over her shoulder and half drag it to the Dumpster.

I watched her for a moment, mesmerized by the pretty cotton-candy color of her hair, until I heard Lee whisper urgently. “Meredith! Come on!” He was at the door ahead of me, waiting, his hand outstretched toward me. I felt like my feet were stuck in cement and I couldn't move them. The girl was at the trash bin, struggling to open the lid, and soon she would be finished and headed back to the building. I had to move now—or never.

I lunged myself at Lee just as the girl turned, seeing us both. Her eyes flew open and she planted her fists on her hips. “Hey! You can't do that!”

Part of me thought it was odd that a quirky, counterculture chick like this one would be yelling at us while another part thought,
Go! Now!
I ran into the back of Lee and he pulled me along the wall, inside the theater, through the employee entrance. We stumbled into the lobby, grinning in relief.

I glanced around us, half expecting a swarm of usher police to come after us, but no one did. Crowds stood in line for popcorn, but we were safely behind the counter. Before the pink-haired girl could find us, we hurried into the nearest theater. We slid into the first pair of empty seats we could find and tucked ourselves down. I couldn't tell what was playing but it was something action-y. Cars screeched and horns honked. An alien ship flew through the air firing lasers at the humans running for cover.

In the dark, Lee grinned and his white teeth lit up the
space between us. “Must be that Victorian drama everyone's been talking about,” he whispered gleefully.

I felt giddy too. I'd done it. I'd sneaked into the movies. It made me insanely happy that Lee was happy. It probably shouldn't have, but it did.

“Give me your phone,” he said quietly. “I wanna commemorate this.”

I shook my head. “Nuh-uh. We just got here. I don't want to get kicked out.”

He frowned. “Killjoy.” Then he held his hand in front of us and leaned his head close to mine. “Click,” he whispered, as if he were taking a real picture. “Gotcha.”

“Oh my god, finally!” Haley exclaimed when I was at my locker, pulling out books for morning classes. She leaned into me. “Where have you
been
?”

I looked around me. “Um . . . school?”

“You have not. And I would know, because I have been here for the past week”—she pointed first at her chest and then at mine—“and you have not.”

It hadn't been a week. It couldn't have been. Haley was being her melodramatic self. “You're crazy, Hale. Where else would I be?”

She hugged her book bag to her chest and leaned in closer. “At the movies. With Lee Ryan.”

I felt a blush color my cheeks and I stuck my head into my locker to escape my friend's inquisitive gaze. “How did you hear that?”

“Short? Pink hair? That's my brother Cal's girlfriend.”

“You know her?”

“She knows
you
. What were you thinking?” Haley asked. “Sneaking into a movie theater?” She shook her head. “That sounds like something
I
might try. But you?”

I pulled my head out of the locker and stared hard at Haley. She shrank back a bit. I so wanted to say,
Why not me?
Instead I closed my locker, trying very hard not to slam it shut. “Pretty hot today, huh?” I said. “Just like summer again. Indian summer.”

Haley kept her lips pressed together. She was pissed, but she didn't want to be. I'd been keeping secrets from my best friend and she didn't like it. Neither did I.

“Are you walking with me to homeroom?”

She nodded, slightly warily, and we walked down the hallway in silence. Outside homeroom, she stopped. “But what about Lee?”

At the mention of his name, images flooded my brain: the waterfall hike, the tree house sleepover . . . more secrets I'd been keeping from her.

I shrugged. “He was Nate's friend.”

“And . . . ?”

“He was there too.” I couldn't look at her. I couldn't. I knew the question in her eyes would make me uncomfort
able. She wouldn't be able to help herself: she would
have
to ask me. That was what a best friend
did
. I walked into the classroom and took a seat at the back. Another student stopped Haley at the door, asking a question about field hockey practice, and I took that time to slip away.

Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Delaney, pushed through everyone at the door with a hurried
Excuse me
and, as the first bell rang, she tapped her hand lazily on the sign at the front of the room: a black-and-white drawing of an old-fashioned flip phone with a red circle and slash. I reached into my purse and found mine to shut it off.

There was a message from Lee:
day off, wanna come?

I glanced up at the clock, at the sweeping red hand counting down the minute until the second bell rang, when everyone needed to be in their seats, ready to shout,
Present!
I felt my hands shake as I held the phone, staring at the text.

Respond or ignore?

Across the room Haley laughed at her field hockey friend's joke; behind me, other students finished their last text messages before shutting their phones off. The homeroom teacher was powering down her Kindle. The clock's red second hand reached nine, ten . . .

Dry, crackling heat radiated through the uncovered windows and from body to body. It was suddenly summer again, for a day or two at least.

My fingers tapped a quick reply:
yes

Almost instantly, he wrote back:
outside now

I hesitated only a fraction of a second and then rose from my chair just as the last bell echoed in the hallway. “Ms. Delaney, I need to leave—”

“Middie, what are you—” She started to talk over me.

“—now because I'm not feeling very well—”

“—doing out of your seat—”

“—my mother is coming to get me—”

“—when you know we're starting—” She stopped. Gray eyes blinked a few times behind rectangular lenses. “Oh. Yes, of course. By all means, take all the time you need.”

I gathered my books and my purse and scurried out of the classroom, deftly avoiding Haley's laser-like gaze. I made a mental note to shut my phone off. I knew I would be on the receiving end of some questioning texts.

Lee was waiting for me in the pickup circle at the front of the school and I had a fleeting memory of him whisking me away on that first day when we heard about Nate's death. Was it so very long ago?

I hopped on the back of the Vespa and grabbed hold of the chrome trim without a word. The air was as dry as dust; it crackled with a last-ditch attempt at summer, a promise of cornstalks and pumpkins and hot cocoa with marshmallows in the not-too-distant future. Those days were just over the horizon, but not now, not today.

I vaguely recognized the long driveway Lee turned into; it was a place I knew after dark, but it looked different in daylight. Dayton Feed, where we'd had our senior year kick
off party six weeks ago. Ahead was the giant barn, its sides weathered and graying, bushes dried and growing over its signage.

Lee whizzed past the barn and headed farther toward the back of the farm. A fence ahead wore a rusted metal sign that said No Trespassing.
Naturally,
I thought with a smile. Where else would Lee go but a place that was off-limits?

We parked the Vespa and hopped the fence easily. Through brush and branches and trees, we emerged in front of a swimming hole I'd never seen before. Water from a bubbling creek gently flowed between two rocky banks, cooling the air and the grassy shore. The pool was not as deep as the one under the waterfall had been, but it was wider and more placid.

I drank it all in: the solitude, the moist air, the breeze on my skin. It was beautiful.

Lee peeled off his sneakers and socks and tossed them on a tree branch. “You wanna go in?”

“I didn't bring a suit.”

“Neither did I.” He grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it over his head as if I weren't even there. His chest was scrawny compared to Nate's and his shoulders rounded rather than squared. He caught me looking and grinned. “Yeah, I'm a hunk, huh?” He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Whatever. Someday my soft, skinny body will be in fashion and everyone will want to look like me.”

So. Skinny-dipping.

Could I?

I stared down at my outfit: I'd chosen a long-sleeved navy blue T-shirt and dark blue jeans at the start of the day, not knowing how warm it would get. I could feel the heavy cotton clinging to my back with sweat; my underarms were damp and sticky. I was dying for a dip in the creek.

I heard Lee unbuckle his belt, and I quickly shut my eyes. But he'd decided to adopt a bit of modesty and duck behind a bush to finish undressing.

I started with my shoes, heeling them off one by one and then unrolling my socks.
Pants or shirt?
I wondered. Which should I take off first?

Take off?
a wise little voice in my head yelped. Why on earth was I taking anything off in front of a stranger?

But he wasn't a stranger. He was a friend now. And he was nearly undressed himself. I pulled off my shirt, slipped out of my jeans, and stopped. Keep on the bra and panties? Jeans over wet underwear sounded like a bad combination, so I whipped it all off just as Lee came out from behind the bush.

I jumped in, wading until the water was as high as my waist, and then I ducked down, letting it cover me up to my neck. Freezing at first, it didn't take long for my body to adjust to the temperature. I dipped my head back to wet my ponytail and felt the heat rise off me like steam from hot pavement.

A moment later, Lee walked out from behind the bushes
and I started to turn my head, but then I noticed—

“You're wearing underwear!” I said, pointing an arm toward his green plaid boxer shorts.

His eyes widened in delighted shock. “And you're . . .
not
?” He rubbed his hands together like a villain in a cartoon. “This is so much more than I expected!”

“No! No, no, no. This isn't fair!” I cried.

“Meredith Daniels, why the hell did you take off all your clothes?”

“Because I thought . . . I . . . thought . . . you were going to?”

Lee walked toward me, one eyebrow raised suavely. “I think you were projecting,” he said. “You
want
to see me naked.”

I felt my cheeks burn. “Oh dear lord, no,” I told him. “That is the furthest thing from my mind.”

Is it?
the little voice asked me.

Shut up, little voice.

Lee turned and walked out of the creek and back to the bushes.

“Wait! Where are you going?” As I watched, Lee's boxers flew over the top of the bush. “Oh my god. . . .” I dropped fully under the water then, knowing what was coming next. How long could I hold my breath? Twenty seconds? Thirty? A minute?

I heard a gentle splash and felt the water ripple around me. Slowly, I lifted my head out of the creek, one eye
squeezed shut as if glimpsing him naked with only one eye would somehow be less shocking than with both.

Lee had waded in to his waist . . .

Well, nearly to his waist.

My blush spread down my neck and chest and I thanked god I was mostly underwater. I had no idea how much of my body was flushed with embarrassment.

Lee swam around me. “Ever been here before?”

I shook my head as he did a silly dog paddle. “Nope.”

“Ever skinny-dipped before?”

“Would you stop saying naked words?” I asked. I wrapped my arms around myself, careful not to make even a moment's contact with Lee.

“So that's a no.”

“Right. No.”

His circle became smaller and smaller; he was about three feet away from me and getting closer. It was as if he were daring me to move away from him. Or to not move away . . .

I did a kind of breaststroke till my knees were able to touch the bottom. Then I crawled, making sure that all vital parts were still submerged, toward the far rocky bank. The water was shallower there, and I could comfortably sit on the sandy bottom.

Lee took it in stride and began to swim more in earnest. Every so often his naked butt would break the surface of the water, giving me a glimpse of shockingly bright white skin.
“Hey, Meredith!” he called between breaths. “Wanna see me do the backstroke?”

I held my hand over my eyes, not trusting myself to simply close them. “No!”

“You sure? I'm really good at—”

“No, no, no, no!”

He paddled over to me and rested on his knees. His chest was above the water, slick and wet but drying quickly under the sun. “I can't believe you took your clothes off in front of me,” he said with a sly sideways glance. “Usually it takes a lot of sweet-talking to get a girl to do that.”

He wanted to see me blush. I wouldn't oblige. “First of all, I didn't take them off in front of you—”

“You think those tree branches were an impenetrable shield?” he asked.

“And second of all, I thought
you
were taking
your
clothes off, and I didn't want you to be the only freak in the pond.”

“Aw, that's so sweet of you. You didn't want me to be naked all alone.”

“For the love of—Stop saying ‘naked.'”

On the other side of the swimming hole, my phone rang, trilling the first few notes of Haley's disco ringtone.

“I'll get it for you.” He began to rise, but I quickly grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back into the water.

“No!”

“Okay, get it yourself.”

“She can go to voice mail.”

Lee shaded his eyes and stared out over the creek as if he could see my phone from here. “You can't stay in here forever.”

“I know.”

“You'll wrinkle up,” he said with a cluck of his tongue. “Like your mama.”

I splashed some water at him. “What?”

“
What
what? Did you not hear me? I said—”

“I know what you said, and it was kind of mean.”

“Geez,” he drawled. “I was only joking.” He splashed water back at me and it went right up my nose.

I coughed it out and shouted, “Screw you, Ryan!” as I shoveled handfuls of creek water at him.

He shoveled it back. “Screw
you
, Daniels!”

Back and forth it went, some childish taunts were thrown, and maybe there was a brief glimpse of some skin or body part I might not have wished to flash, but it wasn't as if Lee could cover anything up either.

“Screw it all!” Lee yelled. “And screw Nate Bingham!” His shout echoed against the rocky banks of the swimming hole.

I stopped, my hands cupped to throw water. I was only partially submerged, head and shoulders above the surface, so I sank down onto my knees again to hide. “Lee . . .”

“Screw . . .” Lee slammed his hands hard against the surface, aiming a tidal wave of water away from me and back toward the shore. “Nate . . .” He turned to face the rocks and I heard a hitch in his voice.

“It was a stupid place for him to go. Goddamn it.” He slapped at the water. “A stupid thing for him to do.” And again. “I told him that. Like, who fucking cares about kids in goddamn Honduras, you know? Who cares?” Lee held his arms up to the sky as if posing his question to the universe.

I felt a chill run up my spine and I remained as motionless as I could. “Nate cared—”

Lee whipped around and aimed a finger at me. “No, he did not. He did not care.” His eyes were rimmed with red; water ran down his cheeks like fat tears. “He cared about going to college and to medical school—”

“And this was supposed to help him do that!”

“No!” Lee shook his head from side to side. “He could have stayed here and done a ton of other shit that would have been just as helpful. He didn't have to leave. Fuck him. Fuck. Him.” He sank down into the water and let it cover his head. A few bubbles rose to the surface and then stopped.