The Understorey

She had hit the nail on the head. I didn’t care. I only cared, selfishly I admit, for my ownreputation because I was a teenager and hopelessly shallow in the matters of position within the young community. However difficult it was to keep up the false pretense of our town’s expectations of me, I knew too well, as Jules did, the load of being the town’s black sheep. I chose the former because it seemed easier.



“Truthfully Elliott Gray? I’m confident you’re as sick of this place as I am but you just quite haven’t figured out how to let it go. You’re too afraid of losing the security of your popularity that you’d rather not risk being unique and possibly opening yourself up to new and amazing things. You’re too afraid to be yourself and that’s just pathetic to me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”



She gathered her bag and made her way toward the door leaving me stunned by the sudden turn of events. My, my, my! Who does Julia Jacobs thinks she is? I immediately stood to chase after her. I wasn’t about to give her the last word.



Outside of the cafeteria I caught her arm and pressed her back against a locker. She looked at me with shocked eyes as the electricity clung and snapped against the lockers around us. I kept my hand on her arm to help drive the point home.



“Who do you think you are passing a judgment like that on me? You don’t know me. You’ve never bothered to find out if I was the same Elliott or not. You don’t like to be judged by your appearance or actions and yet look at the massive contradiction that is you judging me by mine! I was trying to get to know you again Jules. I wanted to know more about you and not because I had ulterior motives but because I was sincerely interested in you. You should know this. This” I said gesturing with my free hand around us, “should be proof enough.”



I let go of her arm and we both relaxed from the release of the lit tension. She stared seriously into my eyes.



“I’m.....I’m sorry Elliott. You’re right. I, I did judge you unfairly.”



“Well, good,” I said, running my fingers through my hair, “and I’m sorry if I ever gave you the impression that I was anything like the idiots just beyond those doors.”



She smiled and sniffed.



“So?” I asked.



“So, I think that maybe you should call me tonight.”



“Seriously? That would be really nice.”



“Alright. Here.”



She grabbed my hand and took a pen from the inside pocket of her bag. She wrote her number on my palm then looked up at me and smiled before releasing our grip.



“If this were a movie, this would be where we break away from one another and the gooey music would be cued, but....” I said.



“But we still have like twenty minutes of lunch together? And third period next?”



I moved next to Jules at the lockers. We slid to the linoleum floor in unison.



We ate and passed back and forth simple questions like, what’s your favorite color? Things like that. We had things in common that didn’t really matter much on paper but, to me, were an indication of the things to come.



Also, we shared birthdays. I had forgotten about that. Growing up we were always aware that we’d have to plan our parties around the other until, that is, Jules no longer threw them. It didn’t seem that significant then but intimidated me now. I wondered what it meant. Feel like adding weirder to the already weird? Our birth date was February, 29th, leap year.



We talked music, food, movies, books and when they bell rang, much, much too soon, we headed for third period. Without even skin contact, I could tell her heart was lighter and that mine beat in rhythm with hers.



That night, I asked my mom if I could borrow her cell. I borrowed it all the time to talk privately in my room because Maddy had a tendency to get on the other line and eavesdrop, so my mom thought nothing of it. I picked up the phone and ran up the creaky kitchen wooden stairs to my room. My hand shook as I nervously dialed the number written on my hand. Three rings. Her dad answered.



“Hello? Jacobs’ residence.”



“Hello? Mr. Jacobs? This is Elliott Gray. May I speak with Jule, uh, Julia please?”



“Just a moment.”



The silent wait was torturous. My bouncing knee would have kept time with a hummingbird’s wings.



“Hello?”



“Hello? Just hello?”



“Hi Elliott.”



“Jules.”



She didn’t correct her name. My heart swelled.



“Can you talk?” I asked.



“Just a sec,” she said and laid her hand over the receiver before continuing, “Pop, please? I’m beggin’ you.” There was a ruffling sound and a chair scooting backward. “Thank you! I hereby retract calling your love for ‘Tiny Dancer’ lame!”



She yelled the last part then laughed.



“Okay Gray. It’s not true, by the way. I love that song, especially after ‘Almost Famous’, but if I let him know that, he’d never let me live it down.”



“You’re funny Jules.”



“Nah. So, did you get all your homework done?”



“What are you my mother?” I teased.



“Um, no. That would be gross.”



I laughed.



“Why would that be gross? My actual mother doesn’t feel that way. At least, I don’t think she does.”



“Because that would mean we’d have to change your name to Oedipus and mine to Jocasta.”



“Yup, that would be gross. Those names are hideous.”



“Hardy, har, har.”



“We wouldn’t have to change names, just yet, anyway. We’d have to marry first, then have children who also happen to be my siblings,” I said.



“You’re right. What was a I thinking?......Uh, this conversation has taken a turn down ‘I never thought I’d talk about something like this’ lane. Serious change of subject por favor?”



“Hey, you brought it up Freud,” I said, both of us laughing. “How about we start over by you telling me something about yourself that no one else knows.”



“Um, I have nothing to tell,” she said.



“Um? You hesitated. Besides, everyone has secrets. Are you afraid to tell me?”



“Well, I’ve got one but I’d never tell it, especially not to you.”



“Come on! I’ve got to know now. Would it help if I told you one about me first? Then, would you tell?”



“Nope.”



“Oh come on Jules! Now that you’ve piqued my interest you’re just going to leave me dangling on your hook? That’s some cruel bait there Jules.”



“Alright, fine but if you so much as think of letting it pass your own lips, even on your death bed, you’re a dead man Gray.”



“If I’m already on my death bed you can’t very well threaten me with death, can you? What would be my motivation to keep quiet?”



“Gray.”



“Okay, scouts honor. You can’t see it but I’m crossing my heart and hoping to die.”



“Good.”



I waited.



“No, baby. You’ve got to go first!” She said laughing.



“Alright, alright, alright.” I sighed loudly, trying to think.



“Okay. Well, if I had my druthers I’d rather stay home on Friday nights and watch seventies era BBC comedies.”



Complete silence.



“Are you kidding me? That’s your big secret? My God Elliott! That’s almost boasting. There’s no way I’m gonna’ tell mine now! Especially since you used a word like ‘druthers’.”



“Oh come on Jules! I just can’t think of anything juicy right now. Please Jules!”



“No sir. No way. Not after a revealing bit of information like that. How could I possibly follow the scandal that is nineteen seventies era British television? Gimme’ a break!” She laughed. “I mean, if you had said something like, ‘On Friday nights I’d rather lounge around and watch old BBC reruns on PBS while I switch the heads on my sister’s Barbie dolls. Now, that would have been something. I could have worked with that but no, I would just humiliate myself now.”



“Switch the heads on my sister’s Barbie dolls?”



She laughed.



“What is wrong with you?” I asked. “Alright, hold on. Let me think........Okay. Okay, I think I’ve got one. Okay, don’t tell anyone but once a month, I volunteer at Shady Pine’s retirement community and play cards and games with the older residents who don’t have much family.”



I think I heard a pin drop.



“Anyway,” I continued, “I have to admit it’s one of my favorite things to do.”



Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.



“Seriously Gray? Seriously! ‘Don’t tell anyone’,” she mocked, “‘but I’m a super nice person who likes to spend time with old people....Tee hee!’ My God Gray! Just sit tight. Whew! I’ve got to tell you my secret just to explain to you what a secret truly is.”



I laughed.



“Alright,” she sighed, “over the summer I drove Carmen down to....”



“Who’s Carmen?” I interrupted.



“Oh, right. Carmen is my Karmann Ghia.”



“Oh,” I chuckled.



“Anyway, over the summer I drove Carmen to the creek, near the rock bridge, that we used to fish for tadpoles in. Remember it?”



“Yeah, I remember. The shallow pool?”



“Yeah. So, I got out and trekked the little quarter mile to the creek and enjoyed the beautiful nature of it all. Well, it was July and it was getting kind of hot and I was dying to jump in but didn’t want to get my clothes wet.” I shifted uncomfortably in my computer chair. “So, I looked around to ensure that no one was there. I mean, it is in the middle of nowhere and you and I are the only two people in the world that I knew of who had any idea where it was so I took off my cut-off’s and my tank top and left them with my flip flops on that tree stump that got hit by lightning when we were kids at the edge of the creek. Anyway, so I dove in. I was having a marvelous time just swimming and enjoying the cool water but when I got out and started for the stump where my clothes were, they weren’t there. I started to worry that someone had seen me and I kind of began to panic until I remembered that I had left half a candy bar in my shorts’ pocket. That’s when I noticed the raccoon tracks trailing away from the scene of its crime.”



“What’d you do?” I said, swallowing hard.



“The only thing I could do. I put on my flip flops and walked back to Carmen in my underwear.”



I laughed so hard.



“How did you drive through town without people noticing?”



“Well, when I got back to the car I remembered I had an old hand towel from my Tribal dance class in the back so I draped it over my chest and practically sped through town. I say, practically sped because I didn’t want to risk embarrassing myself or your Uncle Danny.”



My Uncle Danny was the town’s sheriff.



“Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious.”



“Well then came the hard part.”