Fay dropped to her knees and joined me under the hemlock. “You’ve been under here recently.” It was a Monday night, and she and Aunt Olive had come over for dinner. It would take a while before that felt like everyday life instead of a vacation.
I lay back on the dry ground and put my hands behind my head for a pillow. “Paul and I came here one day.”
“Oh, really?” Her eyes glittered in the dim evening light. “I think there are many, many things you haven’t told me.” She sat down beside me and laid her legs across mine. “And I will pin you down until you spill the details.”
“There aren’t any details.”
She poked me in the side.
“I’m serious!”
Fay dug her fingertips into my ribs, squeezing until I wriggled out from under her, laughing. “Okay, fine. But there’s nothing juicy. He hasn’t even kissed me yet.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Look at you, taking it slow.”
Slow. It sure didn’t feel that way. I’d never been so whiplashed by the speed of my feelings. We’d spent the last couple weeks hanging out. We got slushies from the gas station and drank them as we walked around town, we sat on his porch steps and talked, he waited around at Heidi’s so he could spend my breaks with me. Any time we weren’t together, he was the only thing I could think about.
I wasn’t ready to share all of that, not even with Fay, so I kept it vague. “We’ve been hanging out. I like his smile. He seems to get me, even though half the time I don’t understand him at all because he’s freakishly optimistic. He likes Abe.”
“Of course he does.”
“And he’s taking me on a real date soon.”
Fay squeaked and leaned over to give me a hug. “When? When is this date?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve had to work every Friday and Saturday night since he asked, and he’s been working all day on weekends. I work the early shift this Saturday, though, so maybe then. And talking about it will just jinx it, so let’s change the subject.”
“I’m not sure I like this new you, not willing to tell me all your secrets.”
“I’m willing, I promise. There just isn’t much to tell.”
“Not once have you ever had zero secrets to tell me.”
I chuckled. “To be honest, half the time I was making things up just to impress you.”
Fay smiled softly. “I already knew that.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. I did. And somehow you impressed me anyway.” She picked up my hand and squeezed it.
I sighed happily. “I really am glad you’re back. When are you coming to school? It’s not fair I had to go today and you didn’t.”
“Mom’s letting me get settled. She said I could take the whole week off if I wanted, but I think I might go on Wednesday. Get it over with.”
“Will you join the cross country team with me?”
“You really joined cross country? I thought you were joking.”
I shrugged. “I’ve been running. I like how it makes me feel.” Practices were before school, which was perfect because I worked most afternoons. I’d never joined a team or anything before. It still felt a little weird, but mostly I liked it. I still went running on my own when I could, because I liked that best.
“I’ll join cross country if you join swimming this winter.”
“No way. No deal.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. Her phone rang, and she reached into her back pocket to get it. She looked at it and then back to me. “It’s Malcolm.” She tapped her screen and set the phone on the ground.
“You could have answered it. You don’t have to ignore him on my account.”
“Sure I do. You’re worth it. He knew I’d be here.”
Her phone rang again, and I saw that it was Paul this time. I snatched up the phone. “Hi Paul, it’s Celia.”
Fay tilted her head and gave me a look. “So maybe you’ve changed, but not that much.”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Is dinner over?” Paul asked.
“Yes.”
“You in the mood for a little excitement?”
I tucked the phone into my neck and looked to Fay. “Are we in the mood for a little excitement?”
“Is your name Celia Jane Young?”
I grinned and put the phone back to my ear. “Tell us where.”
I gathered the details from Paul as we crawled out from beneath the tree. I handed Fay her phone and headed toward the house.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“The pasture at the back of Derek’s farm.”
“A pasture?”
“You wanted small town life.”
I poked my head in the back door, where Mom and Aunt Olive sat at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee in front of them. Fay stuck her face in behind me. “Fay and I are going on a walk. What time do you want us back?”
Mom looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s a school night, Celia. Why don’t you just stay here?”
Olive looked at her sister. “Oh Donna, let them go.”
Mom sighed. “You’re too easy.”
Olive grinned. “Maybe, but you love that about me.”
“Oh, fine. But be back by ten. It’s a school night.”
Perfect. I’d been afraid she was going to say nine. “Great, ten it is.” I shut the door before anyone’s mind changed.
“They are so much like us,” Fay said as we crossed the yard and headed down the sidewalk.
“That’s fine, just as long as we aren’t like them.”
She smiled. “Hey, your mom and dad seemed good at dinner.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times that things are fine.”
“Yeah, but I liked seeing it with my own eyes.”
It was still awkward talking about this stuff with her. I wasn’t used to hearing any of these words out loud. But she was family, and I trusted her. “Dad hasn’t been drinking anything stronger than iced tea,” I blurted out. “At home, anyway. Well, once he had one beer, but only one, and he cleared all the liquor from the house.”
We walked a little ways while Fay gave that some thought. “Is that…typical?”
“Sort of. He always hits the reset button after things get really bad, but he’s never seemed so serious about it. He’s certainly never gone so far as to throw away his beer.”
Fay picked up my arm and linked it with hers, clutching it tightly to her side. My family wasn’t very physically affectionate with me. Mom sometimes was with Abe, but not me. We didn’t hug, and it was rare that I got touched at all at home. Fay’s invasion of my space always took me by surprise.
“Whatever happens, Celia, good or bad, just remember you’re not in it alone.”
I squeezed her arm with mine. “It’s hard when things that are my problem aren’t within my control.”
“Too much of life falls into that category,” she said.
There were a lot of things in Fay’s life that she could have been talking about, but I was pretty sure I knew which one she had on her mind at the moment. “Was it hard to say good-bye to your dad?”
She bit her lip and squeezed my arm tighter. “It was really hard. Whenever I think about him, I keep picturing him there without us. We always watched reruns of Little House on the Prairie every Thursday night. It was our thing. I don’t know if he likes it enough to watch it without me, but I keep imagining him sitting on the couch alone, that ugly afghan over his legs, watching Pa plow the fields.”
“I can totally see Uncle Gill just like you described.”
“Right? Then my mind goes to even worse places. I think about what it would be like if he wasn’t watching it alone.” Her voice turned high and she had to clear her throat to continue talking. “What if he found a new wife, and she had a daughter, and he watched Little House with her?”
Fay didn’t need me to tell her it wouldn’t mean her dad loved her less just because he found more people to love. She didn’t need me to explain that she’d always come first to her father. She knew all of that, but that didn’t make it easier. “I suggest you take that idea, wad it up, and use it for toilet paper.”
She laughed, and we walked silently for a bit, still linked together at our arms. “What do you think these boys are up to?”
“We’re about to find out.” We had arrived at the edge of Derek’s property. He had a big yard, but we kept to the side of it, out of view of any windows, because I didn’t know if his parents knew about this gathering. Behind his back yard was a small tree line, and once we entered, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“This reminds me of another little trip into the woods with you,” Fay said.
I chuckled, thinking of the time I took her out to spy on some skinny dippers. “You were just disappointed because you wanted to get naked and join in.”
She pushed a low branch out of the way. “It would have been more fun than just watching. But please, don’t ever try so hard to keep me from being bored again.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re grateful for my impulsivity and lack of responsibility. We wouldn’t be here if not for me. You didn’t even want to answer the phone.”
“I was trying to have some cousin time.”
We broke out of the trees and were confronted with a cornfield spread vast before us. Fay’s eyebrows rose up her forehead. “You’re not serious.”
“Here we go—cousin time in the stalks.” I led the way into a row. The corn stalks were more brown than green, and itchy against my legs. Harvest wasn’t far away. Inside the corn was like a whole new planet. The stalks towered over us, and after we’d walked for a few minutes, there was nothing to see but corn in every direction except up, which contained the first stars of the evening. I found it peaceful.
“Celia, hang on.” Fay reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “What’s that sound?”
I paused to listen, and located some rustling leaves coming from several rows over. I tried not to laugh. Fay liked to think she was a country girl at heart, but she’d have to grow into that title. “It’s probably just a raccoon.”
“Okay, but let’s move a little faster. Are you sure you know where we’re going?”
For Fay, I picked up the pace. I took a deep breath of the earthy, dusty smell of harvest. “There’s only one direction to go. We just follow the row. The pasture is at the end of this field.”
She kept her hand on my shoulder the rest of the trek through the corn. When we popped out the other side, we were greeted by a large bonfire and a small crowd. Malcolm jumped up, ever aware of Fay’s every movement, and Paul noticed and jumped up after him. They loped toward us, each seeming to try and walk faster than the other.
Fay laughed.
“They are so stupid,” I said.
“In the best possible way,” she added.
When the boys reached us, Malcolm gathered Fay into his arms. Paul approached me slowly, hands in his pockets. We weren’t yet at the stage where we had a standard greeting. He nodded toward them and smiled. “There they go again.”
I walked toward the fire, and Paul walked with me. “So who’s here tonight?”
“It’s kind of a neat mix of your friends and mine. Derek and Daisy, Molly, Nick, and some new guy named Bennie. He’s going to start school tomorrow.”
I stopped a distance away from the rest of the people, wanting to keep Paul to myself a little longer. “Fay won’t be the only new kid then. That’s good.”
“She’s not really new. Everybody knows her from the summer.”
“It’s different at school.”
He nodded. “Want to go sit?”
Bales of straw circled the bonfire, and a large cooler sat nearby. Paul went to the cooler and leaned down to open it, but he let the lid drop back down as he straightened and looked at me. “Are we having beers tonight?”
I knew he said that because of my dad. “We are having beers tonight. A bonfire in a pasture is not a bonfire in a pasture without beer.”
He reopened the lid and pulled out two cans and handed one to me. I opened my can and took a sip.
“Oh good, you’re finally here!” Derek said. He climbed up on the straw bale he’d been sitting on with Daisy, and held onto her head for balance. It was clearly a beer night for Derek. “Hear ye, hear ye! All my loyal constituents have arrived, so the evening’s festivities shall commence!”
“Oh man,” Paul said.
Fay and Malcolm made their way over. Nick set down his drink and knelt behind a bale of straw. When he stood, both hands were laden down with fireworks. “Ladies and gents, we’re about to have ourselves a show.” Daisy removed Derek from her head and helped him climb down from the bale, and Nick handed him a pack of fireworks. It was a series of tubes wrapped in paper so they were held together, and the side said Willows.
“Where did you get these?” Fay asked. “And do fireworks expire? The Fourth of July was months ago.”
“I had a bunch of these out in the barn. We have to use them up.” Derek leaned down and set the willows on the ground. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and held it to the fuse.
My eyes widened and I jumped back, grabbing Fay by the arm.
“Whoa, whoa!” Malcolm growled and pulled Derek’s arm by the elbow, so the lighter wouldn’t make contact.
Paul chuckled and picked up the willows, as well as several other fireworks laying at Derek’s feet. “You might want to consider moving a little farther away from all this straw,” he said, patting Derek on the shoulder.
“Or these people,” Fay said, her arms crossed over her chest.
Malcolm pried the lighter out of Derek’s hand and looked to Paul with a mischievous look on his face. “He’s too far gone. Looks like it’s up to you and me.”
“And me,” Nick put in, before tripping backwards over a bale and landing on his ass.
Molly giggled. I rolled my eyes, but secretly I was enjoying this.
Paul juggled a cellophane wrapped box of fireworks between his palms and grinned at Malcolm. “Let’s do it.”
“I want to help,” Bennie said, and he appeared sober enough that Malcolm nodded at him.
Fay and I sat together on a bale while the boys walked farther out into the pasture.
“I hope he doesn’t burn off his eyebrows. I really like his eyebrows,” she said.
Giggles flooded me, and I knew it was likely due to the beer I’d finished. I wasn’t worried about Paul’s eyebrows catching on fire, or the rest of him, for that matter. This was the kind of night that erased all my worries, not the kind that created them. He’d be fine. I pulled my feet up onto the bale and prepared to enjoy the show.
From this distance, I could see the dark forms of Bennie, Malcolm, and Paul bent over the fireworks. Some sparks disseminated and two of the boys jumped back. I could tell it was Paul who didn’t flinch. One at a time, yellow sparks shot into the sky and rained out in the shape of a willow tree, until all eight tubes were spent. Each one came with a deafening pop, and I swear I felt a spark land on my arm. I brushed at my shoulder and inspected my hair to be sure I hadn’t been lit on fire.
Next came another willow, then a few shaped like red globes, and then a pink one shaped like palm leaves.
Derek and Nick lay on the ground, mesmerized by the colorful glow of the sky. “Wow,” one of them said, drawing out the word so it lasted a long breath.
That gave Fay the giggles, and we oohed and aahed and laughed our way through ten more fireworks.
Paul came jogging back over. “What did you think?” he asked, out of breath, sweaty, and glowing from the joy of explosions created under his hands.
“I’m wondering why we bothered sneaking across Derek’s yard,” I said, giggling some more.
A huge burst of a laugh came from Fay, but then she turned serious quickly. “Really, though. There is underage drinking happening in this pasture, and you guys basically launched a dozen flares pointing right at us.”
“It was twenty,” Bennie said, coming up behind Paul and slapping him on the back. “Twenty flares.”
“I’m not worried. It was just some fireworks. Nothing the cops are going to care about,” Paul said.
I smiled to myself. If Paul wasn’t worried, I wasn’t worried. It was starting to work that way.
“What about his parents?” Fay asked, gesturing to Derek.
Derek leaned up on his elbows and looked at the rest of us. “Nah, man. My dad knew we were going to set them off. He said it was okay.” Then he lay back down and closed his eyes. Daisy joined him in the grass, their heads bent toward each other, the bonfire at their feet.
Malcolm held out his hand to help Fay stand. “There’s a little stream in those trees over there. Want to go check it out?”
“You know I can’t resist water.” She hopped up and slipped her hand around Malcolm’s waist, and they strode off toward the trees. I looked for Molly, and she and Bennie were on the other side of the bonfire, straddling a bale and laughing about something. Half the time it seemed like parties were only intended as a way for people to pair off.
Paul sat down by my feet and leaned back against the bale of straw. “Want another beer?”
“I better not. I have to be home in an hour.”
“You know what that leaves just enough time for?”
“What?”
“Kittens.”
I stared at the top of his head. The hair at the back was flipped over the wrong way, across his part. I wanted to reach out and flip it back, but I kept my hands to myself. “Kittens?”
“See that barn over there?” He pointed to a small, dilapidated structure to the west of the pasture. “When Derek was hunting for the fireworks, he found a litter of kittens with their mama.”
I stood up and reached down for his hand, and pulled him up to standing. “Daisy, Molly, want to go see some kittens?”
Molly widened her eyes at me, tilting her head ardently toward Bennie, obviously wanting to stay there with him and for me not to jeopardize her opportunity. Daisy’s hand lifted in the air and then flopped back to the ground. “I would, but I don’t want to.” She and Derek dissolved into a fit of giggles. Nick snored on the ground behind the bale where he’d never gotten up.
“Looks like it’s just us.” I looked down to where our hands were still joined, and back up to Paul’s eyes, where the reflection of the fire danced.
The tall grass of the pasture scratched at my ankles as I high-stepped across it. When we reached the barn, I pushed the stiff and squeaky door open. A hole in the roof let in a little moonlight, but not enough to see where I stepped. “Do you have a flashlight?”
Behind me, Paul pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. “I don’t have much battery left.” He lifted his arm and reached around me, holding it out to shine on the dirt floor in front of me.
His arm floated there, brushing against mine, and I caught the scent of smoke from the fireworks. “Kitties, are you in here?” I said softly.
A soft mewling came from the back corner. Paul stepped around me to lead the way with the light. He crouched down beside a wooden work bench, and I copied his movements, squeezing into the small corner beside him. There, on a pile of old rags, was an orange mama cat lying on her side, with three babies in a row, suckling. Another baby was near the mama’s head, being licked—its body swaying with each stroke of the tongue.
A light sigh of delight escaped my lips, and Paul’s head whipped around to look at me. “You love cats.”
“I’ve always wanted one,” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away from the tiny ears, bobbing as they kneaded their mother’s fleshy belly.
Paul’s head was only inches from mine, and he seemed as unable to look away from my face as I was unable to look away from the kittens. His breath brushed across my cheeks. “When they’re big enough, Derek will let you have one.”
“I’ve never asked for a pet before. I have no idea what my parents would say.”
“If you could have one, which one would you want?”
I looked at the babies. Three of them were orange tones, like their mother. One was light gray. As though it could tell I was thinking about it, the gray one lifted its head and moved away from its mama. Its head wobbled as it climbed over its siblings. “That one. The gray one.”
Paul reached down and picked it up, cradling it in his palm. He petted its head with one large finger, and the kitten produced a tiny mew. He flipped it over and inspected it. “It’s a little early to tell, but I think it’s a girl. Hold out your hands.”
He dropped the little kitten into my cupped hands, and I saw that her eyes were still sealed shut, and she had a pink nose. I lifted her until my nose touched hers. I felt a little silly as tears swam in my eyes, and I lowered her and stroked my hand over her thin back. “She’s awfully skinny.”
“It’s just because she’s so young—probably only a week old. She’ll fatten up.” Paul’s voice was a soft whisper.
“I better put her back.” Reluctantly, I set her down next to her mama’s face, and the big cat began to lick my scent off her baby.
I sat back on my heels and looked at Paul. From his expression, I could tell that the glowing inside me was evident on my face. “This is the best party I’ve ever been to,” I blurted out, marveling at the way I spoke without thinking or guarding myself.
“Me too,” he said, perfectly comfortable because he had never guarded himself at all. “The best party by far.”