It’s been three days since Tyler’s birthday bash, and school starts tomorrow. I love this last day of summer almost more than the last day of school. Hattie and I have made a habit of clearing the day so that we can sleep in late and then get in one last sunburn at the beach before spending the rest of the day in a cool, dark movie theater.
Saul and Ruth have managed to get the day off too, which is some kind of miracle, since the four of us comprise a third of the waitstaff at Boucher’s.
After my paper route, I come home to sleep for a few hours more, and I’m so stupid excited for today that I decide to sleep in my swimsuit, a mint-colored tankini that fits more like bikini bottoms and a crop top.
My eyes are closed for what feels like no more than twenty minutes when I hear heavy feet clomping down the narrow hallway outside my door.
I try to ignore the noise for as long as I can, but eventually I crack my door open to find Tyler and one of his greaseball friends piling up boxes of records and old gaming consoles and trash bags overflowing with clothes outside of Hattie’s room.
“What are you doing?” I spit.
Tyler’s friend shrugs and shoulders his way past me.
“Moving day,” Tyler says. “Home sweet home, right, sis?”
A cringe rolls up my spine. I watch as the pile grows, edging me slowly back into my bedroom as the space around me continues to shrink.
Hattie finally emerges from her room. “Hey,” she says, “so I don’t think I can do the beach and the movies today.”
I groan and slam the door behind me.
Moments later, Hattie’s in my room. “Listen, you can go on without me.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s my senior year, Hattie. We always do the beach and a movie.”
She sinks down onto my bed beside me. “I know. And I’m sorry, Ro. But we have to get all that shit into my room, and it’s just so much.”
“He really does have a lot of stuff.”
She sighs and rests her head against my shoulder.
“Like, can’t we throw all that shit in a shopping cart and leave it out front for Mrs. Pearlman to pick through? We don’t have room for all that stuff in here.” Mrs. Pearlman is a connoisseur of junk and gossip.
“I’ll tell you what,” she says. “You help me get all that crap in my room and we can go to the movies.”
I hold my hand out to her and we shake on it. “Deal,” I say.
While Hattie gets started on Tyler’s stuff and he begins to install his consoles in the living room, I text Saul and Ruthie and let them know we’ve got to bail on the beach. Saul sends a series of dramatically disappointed selfies and Ruthie simply responds with a K.
I decide that since we’re already breaking tradition, I might as well invite Freddie to join us at the movies. I waver back and forth for a moment on whether I should call or text. Since I haven’t officially waved my gay flag for Freddie, I don’t want him to think this is anything more than us hanging out as friends. I opt for a text.
Tyler’s crap is endless, and most of it is dirty laundry. And the fact that he took his dirty laundry from his mom’s house to his girlfriend’s house? Well, that pisses me off.
When Dad leaves for work, he calls to us from the other end of the hallway, because the floor is completely covered in Tyler’s stuff. I can see my dad’s neck and ears turning red—a sure sign of his rising blood pressure. I wish he would say something. Anything. Tell Tyler he can’t expect to fit all this shit in our house or tell him he can’t move in at all. But all Dad sees is Hattie. He couldn’t make it work with Mom, so the best he can do is give Hattie and Tyler a fighting chance. “Y’all make sure to close the door when you’re coming and going. Don’t want that cold air to get out. Love you, girls.”
Tyler doesn’t say anything. Not even a weak thank-you.
“Love you, too,” Hattie and I chirp back.
I glare at Tyler, but he’s oblivious.
After the three of us spend a few hours weeding through boxes and trash bags, Saul picks Hattie and me up. I’m too lazy and sweaty to change out of my swimsuit, so I throw a dress on over and grab a flannel shirt for the movie.
As we’re leaving, Hattie asks Tyler if he’s sure he doesn’t want to go. He says, “I’m gonna stay in and finish my game.”
“And look at porn,” I add the minute he closes her bedroom door.
Hattie shrugs as she locks the front door behind us. “He’s not getting it here,” she says. “I feel about as sexy as a watermelon.”
“Well, I think you’re a super-sexy watermelon!” Saul calls from his Jeep.
My sister takes the front and gives Saul a huge kiss on the cheek while Ruthie and I hop in the back, and the four of us leave to pick up Freddie.
“Sorry we missed the beach,” I say on behalf of the both of us.
Ruth pulls her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail. She has that perfect, thick kind of hair that’s only ever been dyed by the sun. “That’s okay,” she says. “Saul got into it with our parents this morning, so we didn’t even go either.”
He glances at me in the rearview mirror. “They’re trying to institute some kind of curfew on me, like I’m not an adult.”
“You didn’t come in until four a.m.,” Ruth reminds him.
“And you think Dad would’ve cared if a girl was dropping me off?”
She sighs and leans back into her seat, because he’s right. The two of them have plenty of things that Hattie and I don’t—a nice house, money for college (unless you’re Saul and don’t plan on going), and a guaranteed car as a high school graduation present. But something we have that they don’t is our dad. He’s not perfect, but he accepts the two of us in a way Saul and Ruth’s parents have never been capable of. I’m not even allowed over at their house—as if I could somehow make Saul or Ruth gayer than they already are.
When we get to Agnes’s, Freddie is sitting on the front porch waiting for us in shorts and a striped tank top.
“Is this the piece of meat you ran off with the other night?” asks Saul. “He’s even cuter when I’m sober.”
Ruthie rolls her eyes and nudges me to scoot over so that I’m sitting in the middle. “I hate uneven numbers.”
“Get over it,” I tell her. It’s not so much uneven numbers but new people that Ruth isn’t a fan of.
Freddie hoists himself up using the roll bar and slides in next to me. “Thanks for inviting me.” His voice drops to a whisper when he asks, “You sure your friends don’t mind?”
I laugh. “This is the most exciting thing to happen to them all summer.” I pat his bare knee. “Guys, this is Freddie.”
Saul whistles, and Ruth offers a short wave, which is probably the closest thing to cordial I can expect from her. Ruth is all hips and thighs and makes no apologies about it, plus Freddie and I are definitely not small people, so it’s a squeeze, but we fit. And to be honest, this is my ideal platonic people-sandwich.
“You know Hattie,” I say. “And that’s Saul and his little sister, Ruth. The three of us will be seniors together.”
Saul speeds down the coastal highway to Gulfport, which is about a thirty-minute drive and has the closest movie theater.
“You got a girlfriend, pretty boy?” hollers Saul over the wind.
“I do,” Freddie shouts. “Her name’s Vivienne.”
I turn to him with a raised eyebrow. A girlfriend?
He grins and shrugs.
I feel a little uncomfortable that he didn’t tell me about her, and I’m not sure why. I almost say something or crack a dumb joke, but then I remember my own lie of omission. I promise myself to tell him about Grace as soon as I can.
“Long distance?” asks Hattie once we roll to a stop at the red light off the shipping docks.
“We’re making it work,” says Freddie. “When it’s supposed to work, it does. But you gotta make it happen.” He speaks with such conviction I almost believe him.
“Long distance is bullshit,” Hattie tells him, but I know it’s me she’s talking to. “Just askin’ for someone to get hurt.”
Freddie grins. “That’s how you know it was worth it. When it hurts.”
Ruth and Saul both sigh for entirely different reasons.
The wind silences us for the rest of the drive and my hair swirls above us, like a blue demon chasing us out of town.
When we arrive at Gulfport Galaxy 9, the storm clouds that hovered over the coast all morning have nearly caught us, so we help Saul put the vinyl top on his Jeep, which he’s always lovingly referred to as the Heap (of shit) since it’s broken-down more often than it’s actually running. The Jeep is a yellowy cream color and before she was the Heap (of shit), he used her for mudding—which is part of the reason why she’s in such tough shape now.
“All right, kiddies,” says Saul as we stand below the marquee, studying the showtimes available to us.
“I want to see Silent Bloodbath,” says Ruthie with determination.
Me, Hattie, and Saul all oooooh in unison.
“No can do,” says Freddie.
“Is Freddie Floaties scared?” says Hattie in that horrible whiny voice she used to tease me with when we were kids.
He shrugs. “Promised Viv we’d see it together.”
Saul rolls his eyes and mimes pointing a loaded gun to his head.
“It’s cool,” Freddie says. “Y’all guys see it and I’ll chill in the arcade or see”—he scans the marquee for a moment—“Kissing in French?”
“Sounds good to me!” Saul steps up to the window to buy tickets for himself and Ruthie. “Two for Silent Bloodbath.”
Before Hattie buys her ticket, she turns back to Freddie. “You could see it and pretend like you didn’t.”
Freddie grins but shakes his head.
It kills me—it really does—because we don’t go to the movies often and I am dying to see Silent Bloodbath, but I turn to Freddie and say, “I’ll go see Kissing in French with you.”
He shakes his head at first but says, “Are you sure? You don’t have to do that.”
“At this point, I want to sit in a cold, dark theater and forget that school is about to start.” It’s a half-lie. Or a half-truth. I’m not sure. But I’m not going to let him see some lame rom-com by himself.
“Okay,” he says. “But my treat, cool?”
I nod and follow everyone else inside to the concessions. Normally we pack our purses full of cheap gas-station candy and soda, but popcorn is half-price before two.
Saul swings back behind me as Freddie joins me with our tickets. “Blast from the past at three o’clock!”
“Huh?”
He kicks me in the shin. “Working behind the hot dog rollers. CarrieAnn Cho.”
Behind the counter stands an Asian girl with deep-brown hair swept into a loose ponytail and a T-shirt advertising this summer’s Super! Big! Explosion! Aliens! blockbuster tucked into her black pants.
She lifts her head and I feel the color drain from my face. “Oh shit.” Instinctively, I take cover behind Freddie and crouch down a bit so that my height doesn’t give me away.
“Uh, what’s happening?” His voice is unsure, but he guards me like a wall.
Saul sighs. “The hauntings of first love.”
“She was not my first love,” I whisper. “More like my first kiss.”
Freddie laughs stiffly.
“Ramona?” CarrieAnn’s high-pitched, far-off-sounding voice finds me.
This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I decided it was time to come out to Freddie.
I straighten my posture and take a few steps closer to the counter. She’s petite and bouncy and reminds me of the fairy art from Hot Topic that Hattie was obsessed with in middle school.
“I thought that was Hattie.” She points to my sister, who is loading an extra-large bucket of popcorn (which she has no intention of sharing, I’m sure) with layers of butter from the dispenser next to the condiments. She even goes so far as to take a cup meant for water and fill it with extra butter for the bottom of her bucket. “And I figured you couldn’t be far,” CarrieAnn finishes.
I smile. “You found me.”
The thing with CarrieAnn is that she and I sloppily made out and fooled around a little at a party that Hattie dragged me to in Gulfport when I was in ninth grade and CarrieAnn was in tenth. Since she lived here in Gulfport, we never really saw each other. Different schools, different friends.
Based on all the voice mails and texts I received from CarrieAnn in the following days and weeks, she was having a personal revelation. And she was ready for something major—something I wasn’t sure how to give her at the time. Listen, I was only fifteen and not really emotionally prepared to be her guide through the Gay Mountains.
Her texts started getting pretty intense, so I did what any normal person who is not really an asshole but is acting like an asshole would do: I ignored her. Since then, I’ve done everything in my power to avoid her until she went off to college in Atlanta last year. But I hadn’t exactly factored in summer break.
“Wow,” says CarrieAnn. “You look great.”
I nod. “Thanks. You too. Nice uniform.”
She smiles so wide I can see her gums. “Thanks. So I go back to school in a week, but maybe we could get together.”
“Oh, wow. I go back to school tomorrow, so my week is pretty crazy.”
“Maybe we could see a movie if you have time? I can get free tickets.”
I open my mouth, but she doesn’t even give me time to respond.
“I still have the same number I did in high school, so you can text me. Did your number change?”
I reach for my phone. “Uh—”
“Could I get two cherry slushes and a medium popcorn?” asks Freddie as he slides in beside me. “Ramona, you want any candy?”
CarrieAnn studies the two of us suspiciously.
I shake my head, relief marred with guilt sinking deep into my chest. As Freddie pays for his order, I slink back behind him and Saul.
“You two lovebirds set a wedding date yet?” Saul asks under his breath.
I punch him in the butt cheek.
“Ow!” he groans. “But kind of nice, too.”
After we split ways with Saul, Ruthie, and Hattie, I turn to Freddie as we walk into the last theater at the end of the hallway. “Thanks for stepping in back there.” I sip the slush he bought me.
“Yeah. Wasn’t sure what that was about, but whatever it was, it was awkward.”
We choose middle seats in the third row from the back, and we have the entire theater to ourselves.
“It’s weird,” I say. “She’s kind of, like, obsessed with me.”
He shakes his head, laughing a bit. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into one of those girls who thinks everyone is obsessed with them. Uggggh,” he mimics, “everyone’s just, like, so obsessed with me.”
“No! Shut up. You know that’s not me.”
He smirks before shoving a fistful of popcorn into his mouth.
“But CarrieAnn really is obsessed with me,” I say.
The screen in front of us plays the same trivia on a loop until the movie starts. The theater is dark and damp, so I take the flannel shirt I’ve got tied around my waist and put it on backward like some sort of blanket-shirt hybrid. We both stuff our faces with popcorn and shout trivia answers back and forth.
And then, out of nowhere, Freddie asks, “So, girls, huh?”
“Yep.” I should say something more, but there’s not much else to say.
“You’ve never dated any guys?”
I shrug. “Haven’t even kissed one.” And then I add, “Well, in recent years.”
“Then how do you know you don’t like guys?”
“I don’t know, Freddie,” I say, trying to hide my irritation. “How many boys did you kiss before you realized you were straight?”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant. You know it.”
“So what did you mean?” The lights dim, and the previews start. Still, it’s only us in the theater.
“I meant that, like, boy-girl is kind of the default that people go for even if it’s not how they were born or whatever.”
“It wasn’t my default. Or whatever.” My voice is sharp.
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, all I hear is the crunching of popcorn.
The movie starts in a French-cooking class, and I immediately decide that the only thing that could make this movie interesting was if smell-o-vision was a real thing, which means not only are we feeling awkward, but we’ll most likely be bored, too.
I don’t get rom-coms. It’s not that I don’t believe in romance or love stories, but for once—just for once!—why can’t the girl sweep the girl off her feet? Or why can’t the fat best friend get the guy? Why can’t two guys get into a pillow fight in their underwear? It’s the same old shit every time.
Freddie turns to me, interrupting the two star-crossed lovers on-screen in the midst of their picnic. “I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. I’m processing is all.”
“Processing? It’s not like someone died or something.” And then I sort of feel like a jerk, too, for snapping at him. I take a deep breath and decide to give him the benefit of the doubt. After a few moments, I ask, “Am I your only gay friend?”
“I mean . . .” He pauses, and fidgets with his hands, like he would when we were kids and he was in trouble with Agnes for something like sneaking snack cakes before lunch. “I know gay people, but yeah. Basically.”
I guess in most parts of the world, this might come as a shock, but down here, not so much. It’s not that there aren’t any gay people in the South; it’s that our cliques and circles are a little tighter than they might be elsewhere. So it’s not all that weird for a guy like Freddie to not have any gay friends.
I cross my legs toward him and practically turn my back to the movie, which has progressed into the rom-com’s version of a training montage, where the beautiful couple traipse around town and rub their beautiful love in everyone’s faces.
With a mouth full of popcorn, I say, “Tell me about Viv.” I want to prove to him that I am the same Ramona I was last night and the day before and all those years ago. It’s not like I think he’s some bigot. He’s ignorant, and sometimes ignorance is as dangerous as bigotry.
He straightens up a little. “We met on swim team.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his pictures to show me one of a black girl with muscular curves and hair cropped short against her angular face. Every inch of her looks deliberate.
“She looks intense,” I say.
“She was. She is.”
“So did you guys click or what?”
He shakes his head. “No way. She transferred to my school in the middle of ninth grade. She hated me at first.” A slow smile spreads across his lips. He’s probably reliving some memory in his head. “Kept calling me smug. I asked her out three times before she said yes, and when I asked her why she’d kept saying no, she said it was ’cause she didn’t like quitters.” He laughs to himself. “You know how some people are easy to be with? Viv was never like that. She made you work for it.”
It was never like that with Grace. Maybe things would have been different if we’d met at school or while she was with friends.
“Me and Viv would always race after practice. I never stood a chance. She loves winning. More than anything. You know how people always tell little girls that if a boy is mean to you, that’s how you know he likes you? Well, that’s how Viv was. She was always name-calling and talking trash and kicking my ass in the pool.” He laughs. “Her own horrible way of flirting.”
“Were you guys on again and off again?”
“A few times. There were a few times.” His gaze drifts for a moment. “So are you seeing someone now?” he asks hesitantly.
I sigh long and hard. “Grace.” I shake my head. “Everybody down here has summer flings all the time, ya know? Including me. And then I met Grace back in June. So when you like someone, you’ve got the whole ‘Do they like me back?’ thing to contend with, but when you’re gay, you sort of have to also feel out if other people are, too. It’s like a double unknown. And with Grace it was hard to tell. I knew she liked me, but I didn’t know if she liked me.”
“Don’t you have, like, gaydar?”
I laugh. “Well, I mean, sometimes I get vibes, but sometimes girls are just friendly. And I get that I stand out, but I think some people have this idea of what a lesbian looks like, and I don’t always fit that image. But with Grace, God, it was painful for the first few days. We met while I was filling in for a few weeks at Palio’s Bike Rental down on the beach. I’d already seen her around town a few times. I had a big line that day, and everyone was hot and annoyed. This guy got to the front of the line and started mouthing off at me for going too slow, but the paperwork for Palio’s is intense, and they still use only hard copies. So anyway, Grace was standing there in this great swimsuit with the sides cut out and huge sunglasses painted like watermelons.” I know I’m going into way too much detail, but I can’t help myself. “She was taller than average for a girl, but not nearly as tall as me. Anyways, she tapped the guy on the shoulder and pointed over to his kid and was like, ‘Um is that your son trying to eat a live hermit crab?’”
Freddie laughs. “She sounds pretty ballsy.”
“Yeah. Yeah, she is.” I’d never thought of Grace as ballsy, but I guess this whole summer was new territory for her, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that it takes some amount of bravery to live your life one way and then suddenly diverge from that path.
I pull out my phone to take my turn and show him a few pictures. I linger for a moment on one of her and me in her room. Me sitting on the floor with her between my legs, resting against my chest like an armchair. She took the picture without me knowing. It was a reflection of us in the floor-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. Her soft green gaze was directed at the camera, while my face was nuzzled into her shoulder. Her black hair against my blue waves looked like a day-old bruise.
I’ve always loved this picture, but now, looking back, it sort of makes me uneasy. Me looking at Grace; her looking at our reflection.
I’m being ridiculous, I tell myself. But the seed of a thought still buries itself in a recess of my brain.
“So how did you know she really liked you?” Freddie asks.
“Well, I hung out at her place a few times. Watching TV and stuff. And then I spent the night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I spent the whole night wide-awake as she kind of scooted in closer to me. I guess I started to get the hint. And if I hadn’t by then, the extra-long hug when I left the next morning was a solid clue. I’m talking full-body hug.”
“Man, I wish Gram would’ve let Viv spend the night.”
I grin. On the screen in front of us, the heroine is sobbing into a bowl of popcorn. “There are some benefits,” I admit. “But it can be pretty confusing, too. I don’t get invited to slumber parties or girls’ night outs or anything like that. Or maybe that’s just because I don’t have many friends.”
“But you’ve got Ruth, right?”
I nod. “Well, that’s true.”
“Have you guys ever . . . ya know?”
I practically spit out my slush. “Oh God, no. Yeah, definitely not.”
Freddie waggles his eyebrows. “Well, if you guys ever need my scientific opinion . . .”
“Oh, come on now. Seriously? Could you be any more of a bro?”
He looks sheepish. “Yeah, that was pretty bad, huh?”
“Worse than bad.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! That was gross. So, anyway, you and Ruth? Nothing there?”
I squint at him for a moment, trying to decide if I’m going to let him get away with that so easily, and decide to count it as strike one. “Right,” I say. “Yeah, it would’ve been hard to not wonder, okay? The only two gay girls in one small town.” I sigh. “But that would’ve been too convenient. Except we did decide that if we’re single and really old, like fifty probably, then we’ll get married and move to Vermont.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “Why Vermont?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Ruth says she heard it was a really gay place, but for, like, gay old people.”
“Like Florida? But gay?”
I choke on a piece of popcorn. “Oh my God! Yes!”
After we’ve both caught our breath, he asks, “So why don’t you and Grace make plans to go to the same university?”
“Yeah right.”
“What? Viv has partial swim scholarships at LSU and Florida State, but she’s choosing LSU because that’s where I’m going.”
“You honestly think I’m going to college?” I’m glad it’s too dark for him to really see me. I might never have had big plans of college, but I still feel like I’m mourning whatever the future might have held before Hattie got knocked up.
“Come on,” he says. “Don’t be another one of those small-town stereotypes.”
I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Speak for yourself, Mr. College Fund.”
“Don’t use money as an excuse, okay? There are grants. And loans even. People figure it out.”
“Yeah, people who don’t live in trailer parks. People who don’t work two jobs through high school. All those people have time to figure it out.” I should feel bad, but I don’t. I’ve been getting the college lecture from random strangers for a long time now. It’s almost as common as You’re so tall! You must play basketball!
He’s silent for a minute. “I’m sorry,” he says, apologizing for, like, the fifteenth time today.
I shake my head. With all the differences between us, I almost can’t believe that we were once inseparable for two months every summer. “No, I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.” Like Grace and how she’s kidnapped my heart and taken it north up the Mississippi River and Hattie and her belly carrying my niece. Or nephew. And how temporary Tyler is and how much space he’s eating up in our already too small trailer and how Dad’s going to work himself to death, which means at the end of the day, I’m the only hope she’s got. So my escape fund? It will probably end up becoming a diapers and baby formula fund.
Despite all that, we talk for the rest of the movie, and I’m so thankful to have this empty theater to ourselves. I finish my slush and when Freddie doesn’t want the rest of his, I finish that too. We stay until the credits are through. CarrieAnn hovers at the door, waiting for us to clear out so she can clean the theater. As we leave, I give her a quick hug and tell her good luck with school this year. I hope she finds her person.
Outside, the rain has passed, so we ride home with the top down on the Jeep. It’s a day that feels like good-bye. It’s not high school that I’ll miss. It’s my summer breaks. The two months of freedom that almost make me feel like a tourist in my own town. Next summer won’t be any kind of break at all. It’ll be life, and the kind of life I’ve got ahead of me doesn’t include vacation time.