"Hey."
"Randy I have a front door."
My window was wide open and he poked his head in. If you haven't guessed it already, I knew Randy. In fact, I had known half of my life. My father worked for his father. He was hired as soon as we moved away from the small home we worked in Oklahoma. I was eight.
Randy and his family lived across the street and his father and my father became good friends before we had even taken the first box out of the moving van. My father went to work for his dad the very next day.
I went to work with my father. I got off the bus at the garage and I did my homework in the office. But the summers were my favorite. That's when Randy accompanied his father to work and we spent our summer days pretending.
To get a real picture of what my childhood was like you would have to see the large tin garage with its big rigs going in and out. To the side and to the back was a large junk yard, the neatest junkyard I have ever seen in my life. A highway ran outside the fence in the front. That was our playground. We would climb up on the old fire truck and act out our scenes. We played hide and go seek or just sat around and played in the dirt. It wouldn't be odd to find us walking across the tires that lined one outside wall of the garage. We were in awe of the rubber forms that were taller than us. That was our mountain.
When we were ten, a redesigned bus was brought in. From the outside it looked just like the school bus we rode to and from school, but inside, it was a camper, complete with a sink, stove and two sets of bunk beds in the back. Dark curtains covered every window and we had to open a few so we could see. We made it our club house.
In that bus we visited places like Egypt and Rome. Italy, France … any where we had heard about. It was an airplane, a boat, train. Anything we needed it to be.
When Randy's dad realized we were playing in the old camper bus, he had it moved. No. He didn't take it away from us. He moved it close to the storage building near the back of the property so it could be plugged into water and power.
Then we had television and snacks and cold drinks. It was always stocked. It was like magic the way it would always be full back then. Now, I think our fathers found it was a safe place for us and they could work without worrying.
It was on that bus, that we spent the rainy days watching movies on the soft sofa which was a table when folded out. The years passed by so quickly and we didn't notice that we were growing up. But Randy noticed that I had changed though I was still the same tom boy I had always been. My bust had grown considerably bigger than most girls at the age of twelve and I noticed his eyes lingered too long and I soon realized that our childhood was coming to an end when he placed his lips on mine. Yes, Randy was the first guy I ever kissed. I like to think we were each other's first love but there was so much we did not know. For us, kissing was innocent. Just another game we played, but our games of house were more evolved that summer than they had been before.
Randy was home schooled until the eighth grade. He was instantly popular and he always had a large group of people around him. I didn't mind. I wasn't the kid everyone picked on. Actually, I don't believe anyone saw me when I walked past. I was invisible. I liked it that way.
"You didn't show up." He climbed inside my window. "How's the wrist."
I held up my hand and a cast that wrapped around my thumb and reached to the base of my elbow.
He sat down on my bed.
"I'm going to kick John's ass." He had a short temper. "I'm sorry you got knocked down in the middle of all of that crap today."
"I'll live." I popped another chocolate in mouth.
"How mad is your father?"
"He's not. I don't think he is anyway."
My mother ran off when I was just a toddler, so it was just me and my daddy. But mostly, I was on my own. My father was a good man, but he had to work and I had the days to run free. I didn't get wild as some kids may have because my father had no problem tearing my but up if I misbehaved. But he had trust. He laid out the boundaries and I kept to them.
"You kids want a piece of chocolate cake?"
My father had remarried two years earlier. Nina loved to cook and there were always baked goods in the house. She had been shocked the first time she had poked her head in and found Randy sitting on my bed. My father had been home and he just laughed. Even he knew there was no chance of anything happening between me and Randy. We were best friends. Nothing more. I don't think Randy ever saw me as a girl.
"That sounds great."
"I bet it does." I laughed. Randy's mom was strict about the sweets he consumed.
"Come on. Lefty." He joked about my only good hand.
"I'll bring it in here." Nina said and we both looked at her and dropped our mouths. Nina didn't allow food or drinks out of the kitchen. I'm guessing she felt bad for my wrist and I wasn't going to argue.
Randy held up a DVD case.
"What's that?" I asked as I fixed my many pillows along the wall so I could sit on my bed like a sofa.
"I rented a couple of movies."
It was Friday night.
"I thought we could have a sleep over like the old days."
"Randy, we are juniors in high school. We don't have sleep over's anymore. What happened to hanging out with the team and the clueless squad?"
"I'm just not feeling it tonight." He laid down on the bed and put his hands behind his head.
"Why not?"
"Laurie broke up with me after school today."
"I'm sorry." But I wasn't. I never thought much of Laurie; the tall brunette who topped led the cheerleaders.
"No, you're not." He playfully slapped my leg. "To be honest, I don't think I'm sorry about it either. If I had to hear that fake tone of hers one more time." We both laughed. Laurie and her friends really could have walked off right out of the Clueless movie with the way they talked and went on. It annoyed me. "I just don't want to hang out with them tonight … unless …"