Roof Time
(Monday, November 23, 2015)
Mondays were Lorena's and Sheila's girls' nights out, when they got together with some of their friends for chat, movies, bridge, or whatever. Ford immersed himself in plans for the big change that was coming up in January—he was taking a job with a quasi-government Agency, but you didn't hear that from me—and Stan, as usual, hung out at the Shack.
Wendy went home at six to prepare dinner for her dad and brothers, but she came back a little after seven—"Need some hangin' time with my peeps," she said. But one peep, Mabel, was absent, gone with her boyfriend Teek and Candy and her boyfriend Adam to a movie.
Grunkle Stan sat in the gift shop, now deserted, playing Hearts with Jeff and Soos. They'd invited Dipper, but he spent the time between dinner and Wendy's return reading Ford's Journal 4, which recorded dozens of new anomalies and strangenesses of Gravity Falls.
Wendy came in grinning, still looking a little strange in her short hairdo. She was wearing Dipper's pine-tree hat. "The mob is fed and settled in front of the TV," she said, sitting on the arm of Dipper's chair. "Now, where were we?"
"Hey, Dipper!" Stan called across the room. "Before you guys get too distracted, I got a little job for ya."
Dipper groaned. "What is it, Grunkle Stan?"
"Last evening, I noticed the left-side light over the Mystery Shack sign is burned out. You run up on the roof and replace it. Wendy, you go help make sure he don't fall off and break his neck."
"Uh—we're not supposed to be alone together," Dipper pointed out.
"Alone, shmalone!"
"Oh, you know her?" Jeff asked.
"Huh?"
Jeff was perched in Little Soos's high chair so he could reach the card table. "Shmalone. If I ever get married, it's going to be her. Oo-lah-lah!"
"A badger, Gnome dude?" Soos asked.
"That's sick! Who'd marry a badger? No, the cutest squirrel you ever saw."
"Listen!" Stan barked. "You two kids leave the trap door open, OK? Besides, you're up on the freakin' roof! No way you're gonna hanky any panky up there. 'Sides, it's cold!"
"The floodlight bulbs are in the toolshed, dudes," Soos said. "Wendy, your key will open it."
"Yeah, yeah," Wendy said. "C'mon, Dip. Let's get this over with."
As they moved toward the door, Dipper heard Jeff say, "That's six cans of brown meat you owe me, Stanley."
"I'm good for it!"
Leaving the card game behind, they went to the tool shed, where they found the floodlamps and got one, still in its package, and then went back through the gift shop and climbed up to the roof. It was nippy, about 45 degrees, but not frigid. They walked out on the platform below the MYSTERY part of the Mystery Shack sign. Sure enough, the right light shone brightly, but the left one was dark, making the sign read ERY HACK.
They stood beneath the blown-out floodlight. "Can you reach it?" Dipper asked.
Wendy stretched. "Need another eight inches," she grunted. "Dip, can you pick me up long enough for me to change the light?"
"Uh—yeah, I think so."
"Don't lose your balance, now."
Dipper steadied himself. She backed against him, he bent his knees and grabbed her around the waist and lifted her, her round butt against his lower tummy. He grunted. She was not an underweight girl. On the other hand, the sensation was not that unpleasant.
She said, "Just hold me steady—whoa!" The middle light flared to life. "I'm blind! Put me down."
"Did you change it?" Dipper asked, surprised.
"No, it was just loose in the socket. Whoo! I was lookin' right at it. I'll wait here until my eyes adjust again. You go tell Stan."
Dipper went down the steep roof to the open trap door, through which a warm glow of yellow light filtered. He knelt down and yelled, "Grunkle Stan! The bulb was just loose. It's on now."
"Huh!" came Stan's voice. "How could it have got loose? Sometimes they do that and the next time you turn 'em on, they blow. I'm gonna switch 'em off and let 'em cool. You and Wendy wait up there until I turn 'em back on to make sure it's still working."
A moment later, the sign lights went out. "How long?" Dipper yelled.
"Let 'em cool good. Maybe thirty-forty minutes. Just wait. Look at the sights. Talk about the weather."
Someone tugged Dipper's arm. "Don't you get it, Dip?" Wendy asked. "C'mon."
They scaled the roof, crossed to the other side, and settled down on Wendy's secret hideaway. Wendy carefully put the boxed light bulb down under the lawn chair, where they wouldn't knock it off. "You still use this place?" Dipper asked.
"Eh, from time to time. When I need a break. When Soos thinks I'm in the ladies' room. Like every day!"
They sat half-reclining with their backs against the roof just below the chimney. "This is Stan letting us have some alone time," he said. "We shouldn't do this. I promised Mom."
"Not alone time. Together time," she corrected. "'Sides, the trap door's still open. And Stan's right, it's so cool that I don't think we're gonna strip down to our skivvies."
"Our what?"
"Word that dad uses. Underwear, dude. Remember the time you freaked 'cause you laid on my bra?" She laughed, and he chuckled, too.
Dipper took a deep breath. The air in Gravity Falls always smelled fresher than in Piedmont. Less used. He could see the dark loom of the mountains against a cloudy sky that held a strangely lingering dim orange light. Out there was the Man Cave, where the Manotaurs lived. He remembered. Off to the left, a yellow glow showed where the town was. Some distant winking lights hinted that teen couples were parking up on Lookout Point. He sighed.
"What's the matter? You sad, Dip?" Wendy asked, reaching to take his hand.
"Just remembering."
—What? she thought to him.
He opened his mind to her, replaying that moment when Wendy had first suggested roof time to the Mystery Twins. The secret ladder. The pine cone toss. Then Wendy's posse had shown up—they'd all separated now, Robbie and Tambry married and off at college, Nate and Lee gone, too, Nate working at a store in the Dalles, Lee up in Washington State, also at college. Thompson and his girl Vanilla were still around, Thompson still managing the movie theater and taking night college courses when he could. But now he was half of a couple, and Wendy didn't see him all that often.
They fed the thoughts back and forth. Dipper concluded, Remember how you asked us not to tell Stan, and we promised, and you jumped off the roof? Made my heart stop! But you rode the trees down. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen! Mabel right away said, "Uh oh! Somebody's in lo-ove!"
—Sounds like Mabes. What did you say?
I said, "Yeah, right. It's not like I lay awake at night thinking about her!"
—Very mature, Dip.
Yeah, only that night—I laid awake thinking about you. And that was why I lied when you guys were going to the convenience store. I told you me and Mabel were thirteen.
—Technically teens, yeah, I remember. And the Lamby Lamby dance!
Which I no longer do!
—Aw. If I asked nicely?
No. Well—maybe. How about on our wedding night? Only I won't have a costume.
—I'm gonna remember that, dude! And I think it would be cute without a costume at all. Hey, how long did Stan say we have?
Thirty, forty minutes.
She rolled toward him and hugged him. "Well then," she whispered, her breath warm and scented with peppermint. "Let's not waste it."
And . . . they did not.
The End