A Girl's Life
Disclaimer: The usual. Anything you recognize is not mine. Anything you don't recognize is probably mine.
Stage One
The first boy Lily remembered was her next-door neighbor, Duncan Kilter. He was eight, and she was six. She liked to decorate his sand castles with dolls while he would knock their heads off with his own action figures. He liked to chase her around while she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Their parents thought it was cute and often stood together on the strip of grass between their houses laughing at their two children.
When the Evans had first moved in, Mr. and Mrs. Kilter, with Duncan standing in-between them, and a small girl holding Mrs. Kilter's hand, had showed up at their steps with a large pie. "Hi, we're your neighbors!" Mrs. Kilter had exclaimed. "We just moved in a week ago." Mrs. Evans, always the classical polite mother, graciously accepted it and invited the Kilters to dinner, and the date was quickly set for next Saturday. Mr. Evans had stood surly to the side and quickly nodded at Mr. Kilter.
Lily had to the side, with one hand on her dad's leg. She looked up at him, wondering why these new people were giving them pie. Mr. Evans hadn't looked down.
At dinner that night, Mr. Evans brought up the neighbors. "Why did you invite them to dinner so soon? We're barely settled in."
"It's not soon. We'll manage." Even Lily could hear the crispness and decisiveness in her mother's voice. She quietly sat in her special seat and ate her green beans.
The dinner went over smoothly. The adults talked about the neighborhood, how cute each of their children were, and the Mrs. Kilter complimented Mrs. Evans on her cooking.
Lily sat in the corner, the "Little Kid's Table," with Duncan and they threw peas at each other.
The two families had become fairly good friends, and often invited each other to sit down dinners or barbeques.
It was at one of these barbeques that Lily remembered Duncan ever being nice to her. They were, as usual, playing in the Kilter's sandbox, which was complete with shovels, buckets, and a large plastic turtle in the corner, which served as a small sandbox for Duncan's little sister. Duncan had built a sand castle and placed his favorite action figure, Superman, carefully on top. Lily, who had always been somewhat of a follower, took the plastic bucket that he had just used, filled it with sand, and tried to build her own sand castle. But when she put her doll, Sammy, on top, the entire castle collapsed and Lily was left to kneel besides a mound of sand.
Duncan leaned over, filled the bucket with sand again, and made another sand castle next to his own. "There," he said, and moved over to give Lily room next to the new sand castle. Lily gave him a gratified smile and stuck Sammy at the top of the castle.
In the background, Mr. Kilter was having a conversation with Mrs. Evans about the quality of the school system. Mrs. Kilter had gotten up and had started to walk towards the kitchen. Lily, immensely pleased with the sight of her doll on top of the castle, shuffled over to her dad, grabbed his hand, and started to pull him towards the sand castle.
"Not now, hunny," Mr. Evans quickly pushed Lily's hand away and stood up. "Why don't you go play with Duncan?" With that, he hurried into the house. Lily gave him a quizzical look, and stumbled back to the sand box, where she proceeded to help Duncan build an entire sand fortress.
When the two got bored, Duncan climbed up and started to head inside the house, presumably to play with his new fire engine truck. Lily, as usual, followed him inside. They climbed up the porch steps, and walked into the kitchen. They walked past the living room towards the giant walk-in closet that Duncan called the "Game Box."
Lily, who had been looking around the house, hadn't noticed Duncan had stopped suddenly and bumped into him.
She looked up. The closet door was open. There were two figures inside, standing rather close together.
Mrs. Evans had come in after them to make sure the kids were okay. "Lily, what's wrong?" she asked upon seeing the children frozen in front of the closet. She walked toward the closet door, and she too, stopped abruptly. "Oh. My."
And that was the end of Lily's first boy friend.