NORMAN, OKLAHOMA
On a Wednesday afternoon in October at the tennis center, nine-year-old Liliana Howe batted a tennis ball at a backboard and fumed. Boys were such jerks!
It was bad enough that after a summer of lessons and dedicated practice she’d totally embarrassed herself in her very first match of her very first tennis tournament. She’d been so nervous. Not only had her mother left work to watch her, but middle school football practice had been canceled that day, so her older brother, Derek, had been there to see her humiliation, too. Derek and his best friend, Mark Christopher.
After spying Mark sitting in the bleachers, she’d double-faulted six times and lost in straight sets.
Liliana shuddered at the memory. He was such a hunk. He had dark hair that he wore a little long and dark-green eyes framed by long, thick eyelashes. She coveted his eyelashes. Her mom wouldn’t let her wear mascara yet. Mark was the tallest boy in eighth grade and superathletic. She’d never seen a single zit on his face. He’d already gotten his braces off.
She thought about him all the time.
She whacked the tennis ball hard. Derek and Mark had been best friends since third grade, and in fourth grade they’d built a clubhouse in Mark’s backyard. A tree house. It had two stories, because they’d needed a deck on the roof for a telescope to watch the stars. Derek said that Mark knew all the constellations and all the stars and that you could see the stars real well from the top of the tree house.
Lili wouldn’t know. She’d never been up in Mark Christopher’s tree house to look at the stars. They said it was only for boys. They even had a sign that said No Girls Allowed.
She didn’t think that was nice or fair. One time when she knew the Christopher family was on vacation, she sneaked into their backyard and checked out the tree house. She didn’t get to see the stars, however, because she couldn’t trespass at night. Doing so in the daytime had been wicked enough. But sneaking out of the house at night would have crossed the line.
Lili never crossed the line. She was a good girl. She didn’t misbehave.
But she’d always wanted to see the stars from the top of the tree house. She used to beg Derek to let her go up there just once. He always said no. That he couldn’t take her because No Girls Allowed was the number one rule. He and Mark had made a blood oath.
And in the four years since they built the tree house, they’d never changed their minds. For four years, Lili always had been left out.
That’s why she was fuming now.
After her disastrous tennis match, Lili watched the singles match being played on the center court. Golden-haired, blue-eyed, big-boobed, and athletic Tiffany Lambeau versus plain, skinny, flat-chested Melissa Levin. Lili rooted hard for Melissa. Tiffany had a mean streak and Lili couldn’t stand her.
She destroyed poor Melissa on the court.
After the match, Lili saw Mark talking to Tiffany. Flirting with Tiffany. Smiling, giggling, golden Tiffany.
When she heard Mark tell Tiffany to meet him at his tree house at ten so they could watch the fireworks show from a special event at Owen Field, Lili had tripped over her own feet, fallen down, and skinned her knee.
Her brother had noticed and laughed at her, of course. She wanted to claw his eyes out, though not because of the laugh. She wanted to scream, What about the blood oath?
But she didn’t. She’d watched Mark and Tiffany leave the tennis center holding hands.
Recalling that moment, Lili hit the tennis ball so hard she broke a string in her racket.
No Girls Allowed. Blood oaths. “Come watch the fireworks with me,” she mimicked.
Lili stewed and steamed about it the rest of the afternoon, through dinner, and while she did her math homework. She was excellent at math, so she finished quickly. She brooded about it when she took her bath, and for once she couldn’t concentrate during her thirty minutes of free reading before lights-out.
She lay awake in the dark, drumming her fingers against the sheets. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky tonight. Mark Christopher was going to show Tiffany Lambeau the stars. Fireworks.
It just wasn’t fair.
Not fair at all.
Hadn’t Lili been the one who used her allowance money to buy the stronger telescope lens for Derek for his birthday? Wasn’t she the one who asked Mom to make ginger cookies instead of chocolate chip for after school snacks because she knew that Mark liked ginger cookies better? Wasn’t she the one who kept her lips zipped when she knew that Derek was sneaking out of the house to go hang with Mark?
Why does Tiffany get to go?
Lili’s throat got tight. Tears pooled in her eyes and she fiercely blinked them away.
Not fair. It wasn’t fair. It should be me.
She glanced at the clock. Read 9:56 p.m. and a burst of anger propelled Lili out of bed. She threw on her clothes, pulled on her sneakers, and did something she’d never … ever … done before.
She crossed the line.
Sneaking out of the house, she crept into the alley and slinked her way from garbage can to garbage can until she reached the Christophers’ backyard.
The gate hung open already. Had Mark left it open for Tiffany or was she already there?
Stealthily, Lili slipped into the yard. She crept toward the huge old oak tree where the tree house had been built. At the base of the ladder, she paused and listened.
From above, she heard a giggle. That giggle. Lili winced. Mark murmured something and softly laughed. More giggles and then a long, long silence. And a feminine sigh.
Then something fluttered down from the trees and fell at her feet. Lili stared at it, her eyes widening, her stomach sinking.
A baby-blue bra.
That’s the moment that Liliana Howe finally accepted that she’d never see the fireworks with Mark Christopher.
Quiet as a mouse, she’d sneaked below the tree house and scooped up the blue bra. On her way back home, she tossed it into a garbage can.