Melba Toast raced toward the moon tower on the wrong side of the road. Wooderson pulled the car up next to Benny's truck and rolled down the passenger's side window.
"Hey Benny, you better have your wood screwed!" he shouted over the noise of the road. "'Cause I'm gonna blow your doors completely off!"
Benny accepted the challenge with a friendly "Fuck you!" and slammed his foot on the gas. The two cars were neck-and-neck for a short time, then Melba Toast blasted past Benny and steered back into the correct lane. Benny was okay with that because his truck was carrying the beer kegs and he didn't want to drive so fast they tumbled out.
The moon tower was located in the middle of nowhere: a half mile off the main road in the woods near the town powerplant. A bunch of bored, horny teenagers couldn't have asked for a better place to throw a party. Benny and Melvin set the kegs up next to trees in a loose circle around the clearing. As the senior class slowly but surely poured into the clearing one car at a time, lines formed behind each keg. Slater took the opportunity to start offering weed to each newcomer. He would make a nice profit by the time the night was over.
Music played loudly from speakers someone brought. Kids showed up who hadn't even been at the Emporium all night, informed by friends or friends of friends about the party. Those who were sober worked hard not to be, and some who started drinking early in the evening now drank even more. Darla and Nesi started a funneling contest with Simone and a few other girls. Clint and his friends chugged beer from cans in a similar fashion. One of Clint's friends also bought a dime off Slater and started burning it.
When Tony, Mike, and Cynthia arrived at the beer bust, the latter parked well away from the party's inner circle so her car would go undisturbed. Clint's group was the first they passed.
"Man, someone's toking some reefer." Mike coughed.
Tony and Cynthia smirked. The trio walked a few feet further before a big, mean hand grabbed Mike's shoulder.
"Hey man. Hey, slow down."
Mike turned to see Clint, his eyes black as his greasy hair. Clint grew up with his dad entering the house like he was sorry he forgot to smash the door into splinters, and it showed now in the way Clint spoke.
"What'd you just say?" he asked.
Mike blinked. "When?"
"Just now, man, when you walked past. What'd you say?"
"A-About what?" Mike knew exactly what he said but could only play dumb. Maybe, like Pickford always did, he hoped for the situation to turn in his favor by accident. More likely, he just didn't know what else to do.
Clint stared the skinnier boy down. "You said: someone's toking some reefer."
Mike glanced behind him at Tony and Cynthia, who watched nervously. "No, I—I may have said something about smelling some pot. Just an observation."
"Oh, an observation." Clint scowled. "Well, who the hell are you, man? Isaac-fuckin-Newton? Guess what? I'm the one smoking marijuana, motherfucker! You got a problem with that?"
"No, of course not," Mike whimpered.
Clint threw up his arms. The left one bore a tattoo of a phoenix. The right had Roman-style letters reading MAMA TRIED. Tried and failed, from the murderous look on Clint's face. "Then why'd you say that, chief? C'mon, man, don't let your mouth write a check your butt can't cash! So I'm blazing with my friends, so I'm a fuckin pothead, what's it to you, huh?" He pushed Mike roughly. "Huh?" He pushed again, and Mike stumbled.
Clint's friends watched with blank faces, as if starting fights was something Clint did all the time. Tony and Cynthia, in contrast, were terrified. Tony knew it was his job as Mike's only male companion to back him up in a fight, but he had never been in a fight in his life. Neither had Mike, for that matter, and it showed in his body language. Mike's hands weren't even clenched into fists yet, and Clint was clearly on the attack.
"What's the matter, pussy?" Clint growled. "Outta observations?" He stripped his plain black T-shirt from his body. "Why don't you observe while I punch your teeth down your fuckin throat!"
Oh shit, he's ripped, Mike thought, and this might very well have been the last clear thought he managed to have before Clint knocked him unconscious if not for Pink.
"Hey, relax! Relax!" Pink caught Clint's fist before he could throw it. "He's cool, man. Relax."
Like most seniors, Clint had at least an inkling of respect for Pink and backed down.
Always saving asses, Pink grouched to himself, well aware the geeks were looking at him like he was Superman right now. First Mitch from O'Bannion, now Mike from Clint. I'm friends with too many weaklings. He complained because he had to put his good looks in jeopardy, but really he liked his unofficial job as sheriff of these parts. He patted Mike on the back. "You okay, man?"
Mike's heart pounded, unable to comprehend he was no longer in immediate danger. He nodded and hurried to rejoin Tony and Cynthia so they could go anywhere in the woods but this exact spot.
Pink returned to where he had been hanging with Mitch, Pickford, and Slater. Clint waited until he was out of earshot, then called after Mike with a cocky grin. "I'll be watching you, Newton! I only came here to do two things, man: kick some ass and drink some beer. Looks like we're almost outta beer."
Real original, Mike thought.
With the nerds safe, Pink suggested to his friends they climb up the moon tower to watch the party grow. The tower was built with a thin metal ladder going all the way up its center. Pink went first, then Slater, then Pickford, and finally Mitch, only Slater stopped about halfway up to let Pickford and Mitch pass him because he was moving so slow. He never believed in the age-old rule of not getting high on one's own supply.
"Why's it called the moon tower, anyway?" Mitch asked.
"Oh, I guess they just decided to build it whenever they were putting up the powerplant," Pink said. "Actually, it's a good idea. I mean, you get a full moon out here every day of the year, you know?"
Pickford stopped climbing and looked down at Mitch. "Yeah, but nothing's ever been repaired, so this whole place could fall down anytime. So you better watch your step, Junior." He pretended to slip, crying out and making Mitch jump slightly.
"This place used to be off limits, man," Slater said. "'Cause some drunk freshman fell off. He went right down the middle, smackin his head on every beam, man. I hear it doesn't hurt after the first couple, though. Autopsy said he had one beer, man, how many did you have?"
Mitch made a psh sound. "Four." And that was over the course of a couple hours. He was barely drunk now.
Slater shook his head. "You're dead, man, you're so dead. Look at the bloodstains right there."
"Shut up," Mitch said, not unkindly.
Once all four boys reached the top of the moon tower, they could see the powerplant where most of their fathers worked, and beyond that the rest of the town. Pickford lit a joint and they passed it around.
"Would you look at this fucking town, man?" Pink sighed. "It's dead." Hardly any lights were on other than lampposts and stoplights and the occasional window. This was not some lively city where night was best time to be awake. Pink wanted to see and maybe live in a city like that one day. Anyplace would be better than here as far as he was concerned.
Slater stared in awe at their small town, apparently finding a certain understated beauty in it. He gestured vaguely at the buildings and neighborhoods before them. "Imagine how many people are out there fuckin right now, man. Just goin at it."
The others laughed.
Down below, the music stopped and there came the bizarre sound of people drinking and shouting without any background noise. Someone must have been changing out tapes, as voices began to yell requests for bands or songs.
"ZZ Top!"
"Nugent!"
"Free Bird!"
Slater cupped his hands to his mouth and called, "Zeppelin!"
A girl's voice asked for Captain and Tennille, and Wooderson could be heard replying, "Fuck you!"
"Sacco and Vansetti," Tony said, not loud enough for anyone to hear. He, Mike, and Cynthia had found Pink's El Camino parked among the cars and lingered by it. They had nowhere else to go and Pink standing up for Mike a few minutes earlier reinforced the idea of safety he represented in their minds.
"Yeah, Sacco and Vansetti." Mike stood with his hands folded across his front, bouncing his weight from foot to foot. "I'm gonna get that guy."
"What guy?" Cynthia asked.
"That asshole on the way in. Clint. Super dominant male in a Fifties greaser uniform."
Tony frowned. "I wouldn't suggest that, Mike."
Mike leaned closer to his friends, his voice low and secretive. "Look man, I got it all planned out. Most fights in places like this never get past a punch or two before they're broken up, know what I'm saying? It's like there's this almost natural instinct not to upset the herd. So all I gotta do is get in one good punch, play defense, and wait."
Tony and Cynthia shared a bewildered look. "What're you talking about?"
Mike groaned, frustrated by their failure to understand his mental torment. "I guess at first, I was relieved to get outta the situation, but now there's this level of humiliation setting in that I can tell is gonna be with me for-fucking-ever! And I'm just not gonna let this be yet another situation which contributes to me being a little ineffectual nothing for the rest of my life! I have the conscious ability to rebel against that.
"If nothing else, it'll set a tone for my senior year. It's like when you go to prison. They say walk right up to the baddest dude in the whole place and punch him right in the nose in front of everyone. He might beat the crap out of you, but nobody will ever fuck with you because who wants to get punched even one time? You gotta prove you're one of those who's not afraid to…" Mike clenched his right fist and punched it into his left palm. He did this to see what it felt like as much as to capitalize on his point. His palm was so soft. What would it be like to actually punch a person's nose, with all that tough cartilage? His knuckles would bruise. It would hurt, for sure. But would it, somehow, be worth the pain?
"Hey."
Tony straightened his posture when he saw Sabrina approaching. "Hey."
"Remember me?" she asked.
"Sure, you're Sabrina, right?" Tony, of course, knew her name for certain and only phrased this as a question so she wouldn't think he'd replayed their afternoon meeting in his head all night. "What brings you here?"
Sabrina shrugged. "Oh, just hanging out." She leaned against the El Camino, right beside him. Cynthia nudged Mike and whispered something to him. He nodded and they walked away.
"You having fun?" Tony asked.
"Yeah," Sabrina said.
He cleared his throat, looking down at his solo cup. It was mostly full. "So, uh…does your offer from this afternoon still stand?" He hoped this counted as flirting.
Sabrina smiled. "What am I supposed to say? Anything you want."
Tony nodded sympathetically. He glanced in the direction his friends went. They stood in line at a keg. Unbeknownst to him, Cynthia suggested this to Mike so they could talk out of Tony and Sabrina's earshot.
"Why'd we even come here?" she wondered aloud. "I always feel a little out of place at these things, you know?"
"You're telling me, I'm being stalked by a Nazi." Mike was more than disappointed, he was angry. His desire for what he earlier dubbed visceral experience still sat with him, but Clint's brutish nature had stamped on his desire, trying to tell him it was stupid and hopeless. Mike hated that. All he wanted was one night to party with his classmates, to feel like he belonged even a little. "It's amazing. On one level I don't give a shit about anything in the entire world, but that hasn't taken away a kind of natural shyness. You'd think I could blow off caring if people accepted me or not."
"Yeah." It was finally Cynthia's turn to fill her cup. She did so, downed half of it, then filled it up again before letting Mike have his turn. She looked back at the El Camino and made a face. "I can't believe he's flirting with that little freshman." Tony was hypocritical, she thought, to be so disgusted that she found Wooderson cute and then go talk sweet with a girl barely out of junior high.
"Did you say freshman?"
Darla was drinking, smoking, and chewing gum all at once. She looked expectantly at Cynthia.
"Yeah," Cynthia said meekly. Darla had been her bully since first grade. "Right over there."
Darla hummed to herself, observing Sabrina from a distance.
"No trouble though, okay?" Mike asked. Darla didn't so much as look at him and walked away. To Cynthia, he said, "You can't blame him, though. He doesn't even know you like him. It's kind of difficult."
"I know it." Cynthia sighed. "I hate this, let's not even talk about it."
If Mike was good at anything, it was changing the subject. He had all too many different topics of conversation swimming freestyle in his brain. He steered them back toward his idea of fighting Clint. "I just think it's important to rebel against all these petty fears like pain or even death. If you can get to the point where you're not only not afraid of death but perhaps even embracing it, then there is no longer any bad. Everything goes beyond judgment. Good, evil. Right, wrong. It's all bullshit."
"From your perspective, maybe," Cynthia said, only half-interested. "But certainly you're not implying this is valid thinking for everyone?"
"I'm not everyone and of course my perspective. For better or worse, it's the only one I've got."
"So if there is no absolute morality, judgment, or anything else, would you push the button to start a global thermonuclear war?"
Mike seemed unaffected by the dark inquiry. "I'm not sure. Depends on my mood at the time."
For the first time in her life, Cynthia wondered if there was actually something wrong with Mike. "Let's just say I'm thankful the button to the nuclear holocaust is in the hands of politicians worried about re-election and not someone like you going through an existential crisis."
Like anyone in the middle of an existential crisis, the last thing Mike wanted was to hear about how he was going through an existential crisis. "Whatever," he said, lengthening his strides. "Me and my existential crisis are going to go walk around. Later, much."
Cynthia watched him go. She stopped and made a complete 360-degree turn. Everyone she saw seemed to have their own little group of friends to hang out with—not just one or two but three, four, five, even more. This was the problem she had always sensed in the back of her head from the first day she befriended Tony and Mike. They were loners, keeping to themselves even when people laughed and called them homos. Cynthia supposed she qualified as a loner too, at least in the minds of her peers, after hanging out with the boys for so many years. Now, with Tony and Mike distracted by very different but equally powerful issues, where did that leave her?
After climbing down from the moon tower, Pink figured he ought to let Mitch walk around on his own for a while. The kid would never get used to the raucous environment of a high school party otherwise. So Pink joined Don and Benny by the latter's truck, knowing Mitch would not want to hang near Benny.
Don sniffed Pink as he approached. "That a little bit of reefer I smell on you, boy? Coach is right, man. You're running with a bad crowd again. You've got an attitude adjustment you gotta make right now."
Pink scoffed. "Like I'm the only athlete at this fuckin party. Look at you two drunks." Both Don and Benny held solo cups in their hands. Each was several beers in, minimum.
"Coach is right, though," Benny said. He jerked his head in the direction of the moon tower, where Pickford and Slater were just climbing down. "Those guys don't care if we win or lose. Remember that."
I don't care either, Pink thought. Hell, sometimes it was easier to lose a game than win one. Then he didn't have to hear comments like "Great game last weekend, Floyd!" from everyone he met.
Don tugged on his friends' sleeves. "Check this out. Watch me get this beer." He staggered over to a nearby keg, where a full line of people stood waiting their turn to fill their cups. Don pointed wildly, his eyes wide and locked on something deep in the trees only he could see. "Oh, no! It's the cops! Looklooklook!"
The entire line of teenagers instantly broke apart. Boys and girls scrambled to hide or escape. Don threw up his arms, turning back to make sure his comrades saw everything. "It's so easy!" He took his sweet time filling his cup now that he had the keg all to himself.
Pink chuckled. "He needs another drink real, you know, bad."
Benny nodded and downed the rest of his own beer. He threw his arm around Pink in what looked like a friendly gesture but was actually a disguise allowing him to steer Pink into the passenger's seat of his truck. Benny hopped in the driver's seat and rolled his window up. When Don returned, Benny waved him away. Don shrugged and went to talk with Melvin instead.
Benny cleared his throat. He looked at Pink expectantly, waiting to see if Pink would roll up the window on his side, so the loud music would be shut out. Pink did not. Benny sighed. He hated serious conversations like the one he was about to start, and was pissed at Pink for making him have to start it. "So uh…I just wanna talk, you know? Are you quitting football?"
Pink had correctly guessed Benny would ask him this, or something similar. He refused to make eye contact, staring forward at nothing.
"Or is it just this pledge? You don't wanna sign the pledge, right? That's what it is?"
"I dunno, man," Pink said. "Maybe I'm not into any of it anymore."
It took a moment for this to sink into Benny's head. He was incapable of understanding how someone—anyone—could feel apathetic toward sports, toward competition, toward winning. That was the way his dad, who had been Benny's Little League coach, raised him. Winning was everything, and winning happened after competition, and the thing to compete in was team sports. That was how Benny picked his friends. That was how Benny lived. He used to think Pink lived the same way.
"You're not into any of it anymore," he repeated, astounded. His jaw tightened. "That'll be the biggest mistake of your life, Pink. No one quits senior year, pal. Especially if you're starting quarterback." He stuttered, which he hated, but it was hard to argue against a position you didn't understand. "I mean…we got a shot at state. We kicked some butt this year. It's what we've worked for all our lives, man. Me and you. We're gonna be champions together."
A champion of what? Pink thought. Who's gonna remember us being champions in five years? Why would we want anyone to remember us for that in five years?
"Look man, all I'm saying is that…if I do play next year…it's gonna be on my terms, not theirs." Pink only said this to ease Benny into the idea. He had already made up his mind about quitting.
Benny must have sensed this because his tone grew fierce. "You just remember one thing, Pink. It ain't just about you, pal. It's about us, you know? Me, Donnie, Mel. You'd be fuckin us over." This was true. Their team had no better quarterback than Pink. "Or maybe you're just fuckin scared."
Scared of what? Pink shook his head. The only thing that scared him was the idea of looking back on his life years from now and finding he hadn't done everything he wanted to do because he'd been too busy doing things other people wanted him to do. But Benny had always done what other people wanted him to do. His dad and now his coach ran his life. Pink remembered how horrified he felt one night in junior high, when Benny chanted to the rival team across the field: "We ain't here to make friends, we're here to kick ass!" This was the exact same chant Pink heard Benny's dad say for years while watching the Dallas Cowboys on TV. Pink hadn't known then what horrified him about Benny adopting the chant, but he knew now.
"Have a nice night," Benny said suddenly, and stormed out of the truck. He slammed the door closed and rejoined Don and Melvin.
Pink allowed himself a moment to sit in truck and stew over Benny's stubbornness. Presently, a little troll doll appeared on his shoulder and whispered insistently in his ear. Pink got out of the truck and kept a fair distance from his teammates as he searched the party for a certain pretty brunette.
O'Bannion's Plymouth pulled up next to Benny's truck a moment later. The big boy stepped out with a brand-new outfit and hair still a little damp from a long hosing-down followed by an even longer shower. His breath smelled strongly of Funyuns, which he usually ate after a bad football game but tonight indulged in to help put him in a better mood before the beer bust. The onion-flavored snack seemed to have done the trick. He greeted Benny, Melvin, and Don with enthusiasm.
"What's up, cowboy?" Melvin said.
Benny patted O'Bannion's shoulder. "Everything's okay, right?"
O'Bannion's cheerful smile seemed a little too bright. "Oh yeah, man. I'm great. New shirt. I'm back, ready to go."
"Hey, don't worry about those freshmen," Melvin said, handing him a solo cup. "They're dead."
"Oh yeah. Summer's young, know what I mean? We'll get 'em." O'Bannion sounded less threatening than perhaps ever before. He would indeed manage to bust Carl and Tommy later in the summer, and even nab Hirschfelder a second time. But he would find the younger boys no longer feared him like they used to, taking their beatings with all but grins on their faces. Eventually, O'Bannion would decide his heart was no longer in it and his treatment of the freshmen would mellow significantly during his second senior year. He would try to be friendly to them, and they would pretend to accept his friendliness, but there would always be a falsehood to their interactions, unlike the relationship between Pink and Mitch, who became as good as brothers by the time Pink graduated.
O'Bannion gestured at the girl under Benny's arm. "What do we have here? How are you?"
"This is um…" Benny snapped his fingers a few times as he strained to remember. "Lariss?" The girl nodded. "This is my friend O'Bannion."
"Nice to meet you." O'Bannion lowered his voice. "Any more pussy around here?"
Benny shrugged, gesturing vaguely around.
O'Bannion took his solo cup to the nearest keg and shoved past everyone in line. "Excuse me there, partner. Thank you." He returned with a full cup.
Melvin downed the rest of his and stumbled slightly. Don watched with amusement. "Had a little bit to drink there."
O'Bannion observed his thoroughly buzzed teammates and clicked his tongue. "Looks like the night got going without me, huh?" he muttered, failing to disguise his disappointment.
Michelle sat in the grass with her guitar, far enough away from the speakers that she could play and hear herself. She wrote songs on occasion and practiced one of them now while Pickford, Slater, and Kyle each smoked their own joint and listened.
She sang:
Watch them fly Away
"Do you guys know what that song's about?" Pickford looked from Slater to Kyle. "It's about aliens. We're the aliens, man, we're the savages." He knew this because Michelle talked often about her music.
Kyle, who had listened to the song intently up to this point, frowned. "Wait, that song's about that?"
"Yeah, man, that song's about that," Slater said, though he had never heard it until tonight. "You didn't know that? This country is founded—" He paused to take a deep breath. "It was founded by people who were into aliens, man. George Washington, man. He was in a cult, and the cult was into aliens, man. You didn't know that?"
Kyle shrugged sheepishly. He never paid much attention in American History.
Slater nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, they were way into that type of stuff, man."
Kyle chuckled as a thought occurred to him. "George toked weed, man?" It only made sense, if the former president shared such a strong interest in extraterrestrials with stoners like Kyle and Slater.
"Absolutely, George toked weed!" Slater said. "Are you kiddin me, man? He grew fields of that stuff, man. That's what I'm talkin about. Fields."
"He grew that shit up in Mount Vernon, man."
"Mount Vernon, man? He grew it all over the country, man." Slater began to move his hands about theatrically. "He had people growin it all over the country, you know? The whole country back then was gettin high, man. 'Cause he knew he was onto somethin. He knew that it would be a good cash crop for the Southern states, man. So he grew fields of it, man.
"But you know what?" Slater smiled pointedly at Michelle. "Behind every good man, there's a woman. And that woman was Martha Washington, man. And every day he'd come home, she'd have a big fat bowl of the stuff waitin for him, man, when he'd come in the door, man. She was a hip—a hip, hip lady, man."
Michelle smirked and shook her head, making knowing eye contact with Pickford. Slater noticed and resumed his conspiracy theory with twice as much intensity as before. "Really, man! It's true. The man was a visionary, and here we are tokin to his vision two hundred years later!"
Pickford rolled his eyes. Slater decided he and Michelle were a lost cause and redirected his efforts to Kyle. "And she was real cool, too, man. She'd harvest the crops, man, she'd put it in bushels and sell it 'cause they had to make ends meet and stuff. I mean, did you ever look at a dollar bill? There's some spooky stuff goin on, on a dollar bill, man. I mean, and it's green, too!"
Cynthia found a welcoming group in Jodi, Kaye, and Pink. They stood by Jodi's Beetle complaining about their circumstances.
"It's like all our decisions have been made for us," Kaye was saying. "What are our true options? We can ride around or stand here and talk. There's gotta be something interesting going on somewhere else. It's just that we're stuck in bum-fuck-ville."
"And it's all so generic," Jodi agreed. "Wonder Bread Land. I wish I was like, Italian or black or something. Anything to not feel like I stepped out of The Brady Bunch."
For whatever it's worth, I like you just fine now, Pink almost said. What he ended up saying was, "So what is it more of, the place we're stuck in or the time period we're stuck in? Maybe nothing's going on anywhere. Maybe nothing's ever gone on anywhere."
"It has in the past." Kaye shook her head. "It's just that now, anything new and cool is gonna be sold back to us in a TV commercial within two months. I really liked Tony's last column about this decade. What was that one line?" She took a moment to remember. "'The uncertainties of the Sixties have been sold out for the certainty of boredom in the Seventies.'"
Cynthia nodded. She and Tony had discussed this article at length before he presented it to Ms. Wilks for approval. "Yeah, it's like an every-other-decade theory, you know? The Fifties were boring, the Sixties rocked. The Seventies…oh my God, they obviously suck." Everyone grinned wryly. "Maybe the Eighties will be radical. I figure we'll be in our twenties, and hey, it can't get any worse."
As it turned out, Cynthia's prediction was mostly true. The Eighties would be radical in many ways, and things would not get worse but better for her and most of her graduating class over the course of that decade.
Pink looked over his shoulder. A few cars down, Tony and Sabrina sat in the back of his El Camino. He told the girls he would be right back and walked over to them. "Tony, real quick. I don't want to be sports editor. I'd rather write features, editorials, anything but sports." He would even take the monthly movie review column, though Cynthia would probably never give that up. Nor should she, he supposed, because she was rather good at it.
Tony looked appropriately perturbed that his conversation with Sabrina had been interrupted. "You're all we have," he said, unusually dismissive. "Just be editor and I'll let you write whatever else you want."
"I just, you know…" Pink sighed. "Enough of my life has been spent on sports already."
Tony barely acknowledged this last remark, which pissed Pink off a little. Self-centered or not, it baffled him how little everyone seemed to care about his troubles.
Right on cue, two slender hands came to rest on either of his shoulders. They squeezed gently and Pink realized for the first time all night how tense he was. He turned around to see Jodi, a fond and certainly very caring smile on her face, even though she didn't know exactly what was bothering him.
"Let's go get another beer," she said.
Pink nodded. "Okay."
Jodi was buzzed enough not to care who might see and she took Pink's hand, leading him out of the clearing. They walked several yards through the trees before Pink stopped.
"Wait a minute," he said, his voice playful. "Who put the keg way out here in the woods?"
"Hm, I dunno." Jodi smiled and glanced at the ground, pretending to be shy. "This is just where they told me it would be."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I don't think we need beer anyway." Jodi tossed her cup over her shoulder, wrapped her arms around Pink and kissed him. This was not the first time they kissed—in fact, they had kissed many times before—but it was the first time in a long while and Pink almost made an involuntary noise with the back of his throat. His hands slipped to Jodi's waist and pushed her body flush against his. Their closeness did not change when Jodi broke the kiss to look him in the eyes. She said, "Shavonne was right."
Pink frowned. "What?"
Jodi shrugged against him. "She said you're the kind that always waits for the girl to make the first move."
That's not true, Pink thought, but it was. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Jodi smiled, pecking his jaw. "Well, it's true. It just worked for me. I was testing you."
"It's easier." Pink was confused why they were talking at all. "Why, did I pass or fail?"
"I dunno." Jodi ran her fingers up the back of his neck, into his hair. She kissed him again, this time with an open mouth, and Pink responded in kind. They were making out like they were freshmen again, and then Jodi broke the kiss a second time. Pink almost groaned. Girls always wanted to talk during sex or anything in the ballpark of sex. Simone was the same way; when they went to the drive-in, she liked to ask him questions about the movie on the screen in between getting him off.
Fucking hell, I'm thinking about Simone at a time like this? Pink shook his head, trying to clear it. Jodi saw and figured he was just wasted—which he was—but also hoped a little of his fuzziness might be from her. If only Pink knew she was talking so much because she was trying to build up the courage to admit she made a mistake that night after the county fair. She should never have turned down his offer to go steady, her mother's rules be damned.
"So, how would you define yourself?" she asked, almost as annoyed with the question as Pink looked. "More of a jock, a stoner, or a smart guy like Tony and Mike?"
"What, you can only be one thing?" Pink scoffed. "I'm just trying to get by as painlessly as possible. What is this, a 'let's analyze Randy' situation?"
Jodi pecked his lips again, hoping it would count for an apology. "Don't get mad. Just a few thoughts." He seemed to float from clique to clique, that was all. It made her curious. She wondered if he knew who and what he wanted to be, or was trying to figure it out. She wanted him to explain everything to her but worried they were no longer close enough for that.
So we'll get close again, she thought, and the next kiss was even heavier than the last. Tongues went into mouths and hands started sliding up and down bodies. Jodi allowed herself to moan and if she didn't know better, she would think she heard Pink moan once, too. Her hands cupped his face, not letting him go. His squeezed at her waist, but then his left started traveling upward and came to squeeze her breast instead. She giggled, because she liked it, but then he squeezed again and she caught his wrist.
"Wait a minute," she said in between kisses. "Wait." A kiss. "Wait, wait."
"What?" Pink feigned innocence.
Jodi smiled. "What're you doing?"
Pink glanced down at her denim top, a little disheveled from his exploration. "I dunno."
Jodi used a finger to guide his gaze back up where it belonged. "Don't you have a girlfriend?"
Pink looked around as if to say I don't see her anywhere. "What girlfriend?"
"What's her name…Simone?" Jodi's eyes were alight with mischief and solemnity at once. On one level, she was still flirting with Pink, still trying to see how hot and bothered she could get him. On another, she needed him to know that for a lot of easily deducible reasons, they could never do anything more than what they had already done until he rid himself of that slut Simone Kerr.
Pink understood as much. She could tell he did from the way he put his arms back around her waist, trying to hold her there for the rest of the night. But the moment was over. Jodi eased out of his embrace, letting her hand linger on his shoulder. "Maybe another time, Randy. Okay?"
Maybe. It was all up to him. Pink nodded. "Okay."
They bid each other goodbye and left the woods heading in separate directions, Jodi toward Kaye and Pink toward his teammates. Don noticed and placed his hands on his hips. "Wait, what was that all about? What were you doing?"
"Exactly what you wish you were doing," Pink said under his breath.
Melvin grabbed him by the arm, pointing. "Look at your boy! Look at your boy!" Pink followed Melvin's finger and saw Mitch and Julie sitting on the hood of her car, chatting it up with big dumb smiles on their faces.
"Kramer!" Melvin called.
Mitch's head perked up. Don waved. "Yeah, you! Freshman! Right here, buddy."
Mitch waved back. Don smirked. "Waving at us."
"Yeah, what is this waving shit?" Melvin laughed. "Freshman! Over here! Now!"
Mitch groaned. The last fifteen minutes or so had gone exceedingly well. First, Julie found him wandering through the drunken crowd. Then, Mitch said, "Hi, I was wondering if you were around here," even though that went against Don's advice of letting her know how much he liked her. Despite this mistake, Julie invited him over to her car to sit and talk and drink. Now, they were being interrupted, and Mitch couldn't picture a reality where Don and Melvin would stop calling out to him until he answered.
"Shit, I should go," he muttered.
Julie patted his leg reassuringly. "I guess you probably should."
"Shit," Mitch repeated. He slid off the car's hood. "I'll be back."
Don watched the freshman boy's newly-found swagger as he approached. "Like a little Casanova," he whispered. "It's amazing."
Melvin met Mitch halfway and took his chin in between his thumb and forefinger. "Look at this little shit-eating grin on his face."
At least someone's getting some tonight, Pink thought. A little bit of him wanted to be jealous things were working out for Mitch when they weren't for him, but only a little bit. Mostly, he was proud. "That's not bad for a little freshman, but you'd better watch out for them older girls."
"Hey, c'mere." Melvin leaned in close, like he was going to tell Mitch what he wanted for Christmas this year. "We just wanna know something, okay?" He indicated Julie. "Are you gonna be fuckin that later, or are you gonna be a little wimp, huh?"
The idea of having actual sex was still so alien to young Mitch that he should have spiraled down into a stammering fit. But after spending so much time with the senior boys, he was beginning to understand their game. It was like Pink told him: play it cool, and no one would mess with you. So, he puffed out his chest and said, "How do you know I haven't already?"
Pink, Don, and Melvin all reacted accordingly. Melvin especially found this hilarious and waved Mitch away. "Shit, boy! Get outta here, I think it's past your bedtime! Run along!"
Mitch was eager to rejoin Julie and obeyed, backing away from the seniors. Pink pushed past Don and Melvin, intent on offering a last bit of advice. "Why don't you go get a ride with her?" he suggested. "Say we left ya." Mitch hesitated, but Pink winked. "It'll work. You better get back to her, boy."
"Yeah." Mitch waved at them all again. "You guys take it easy."
"We want a full report in the morning!" Don called after him. "Hey, Kramer! Show it!"
"Give it to her!" Pink pumped his fist. "Go!"
Mitch ignored the rest of their taunts and returned to Julie. He was grateful to find she seemed unperturbed by the situation and eased right back into their conversation as if it hadn't been interrupted at all.
Tony and Sabrina were in a position remarkably similar to Mitch and Julie's. They still sat in the back of Pink's El Camino, cross-legged and facing each other.
"Isn't it someone's theory that our entire personalities are formed by the age of seven?" Tony was saying. "I mean, if that's true, it kinda sucks because it means we're stuck with all this stuff we had nothing to do with, you know?"
He of course worried Sabrina might find him a dork at best and intolerable at worst for talking like this, but it was the only way he knew how to talk. If she found such conversation boring, there would be no logical reason to consider any type of relationship. Not that Tony was considering a relationship per se; he hadn't so much as asked a girl out in years. But he liked to entertain all possibilities, even the unlikely ones.
Jodi and Kaye walked over, and Tony experienced a brief streak of annoyance similar to what Mitch felt when Don and Melvin called him away from Julie.
"Hey," Jodi said, placing her hand on Sabrina's shoulder. "We're gonna take off for a bit. You alright?"
"Yeah." Sabrina nodded.
Before he could stop himself, Tony blurted out, "I can give her a ride." He visibly winced, realizing how eager he sounded. It earned him a look from Jodi.
"Okay," Sabrina agreed. To Jodi, she said, "I'll see you later or catch a ride with Tony."
Jodi's hand remained on Sabrina's shoulder. She squeezed gently. "Is that alright? You gonna be okay?" Not that she didn't trust Tony, it was just her job to look out for the younger girl. Sure, no one gave her job, but she wanted it.
"Yeah, fine." Sabrina smiled to show Jodi all was well.
"Okay." Jodi made sure to fix Tony with a warning glare—just in case—before bidding them goodnight.
Once the senior girls left, Sabrina said, "I know what you're talking about. Some things stick with you forever. Like when I was in second grade, in order to memorize words on the spelling test, we used to make up stupid sentences where the first letter of each word would stand for a word. Those stupid sentences are still going through my head." She paused, lowering her gaze. Her hands fiddled with each other in her lap. "Am I just being a total geek? I know I talk too much."
Tony gasped. "No! What are you talking about? Not at all." How incredible it was that she felt insecure about the same things as he.
"I keep thinking about something you said this afternoon," Sabrina went on. "You wondered why I was participating in those stupid initiation rituals. I wasn't going to. I just felt left out. I don't know, I just want high school to be different." Tonight represented the first time she experienced hope that high school really could be different. Her time with Jodi and the other older girls meant more than she could ever express.
"I understand," Tony said truthfully. "I mean, I think we all have that need to fit in." He huffed and glanced around at the party. "Not that I'm an expert on how to do that successfully." Maybe he could have learned how, if he wasn't so set on speaking his mind. Why, who else in their right mind would write an article for the school paper calling Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti a "pretentious mass of overproduced bong water"? That was it, he thought. That was the moment I ruined my chances of having a decent high school experience. He voiced all this to Sabrina.
Tell me about it, her face said. "I just don't want to be one of those geeks that will do anything to be accepted."
"Well, you're not." Tony dared to reach out and place his hand on her clothed knee in what he hoped was a completely nonthreatening gesture. "Don't worry about it."
A sinister giggle came from behind Tony. From the look on Sabrina's face, he was able to correctly guess the approaching presence was Darla. Tony had never been to a beer bust and didn't realize what most of his classmates already knew: Darla was an alcoholic. She had worked on the pint of whiskey with Simone all evening, then funneled beer for the last hour or so. She was not seeing nor walking straight and minutes ago squatted behind a few bushes to relieve herself. Her belly swam with cheap liquids that would soon make her sick to her stomach but for now made her sick only in her head. She marched right up to the El Camino and stared Sabrina down like a gunslinger in a Western.
"Air raid, freshman."
Tony frowned. "What?"
Darla kept her eyes on Sabrina, repeating, "Air raid, freshman."
"Oh c'mon, Darla, leave her—"
"No, Tony. This is between me and her, and she'd better be on the ground in…" Darla paused, and a brilliant number came to her. "…in five seconds!" She held up her right hand with all five fingers up and began counting down. Sabrina shook where she sat but did not move. Why did Jodi have to leave when she did? Of course, Sabrina had no idea of the longstanding feud between Jodi and Darla or how vicious a standoff it would become if Jodi was still around to see this happening.
"Wait," Tony said desperately. "She doesn't have to air raid because she's with me, okay?"
Darla scoffed. The idea of Tony, senior or not, ever being her equal was laughable. Her fingers were down to two. "Air raid, or it's your ass."
"Don't do it, Sabrina," Tony said. Sabrina steeled herself, and did not.
Darla's brow raised. "Oh, that's it. Miss Hot Stuff." She stuck her last raised finger right in Sabrina's face. "I am gonna make the next year of your life a living hell." With this ominous promise, Darla shambled away. She shouted out, "Lick me! All of you!" but it was unclear if she actually meant this for anyone at all.
Tony watched her go until he was certain she wouldn't come back. He turned to Sabrina. The poor girl looked scared out of her mind. Sabrina was thinking about The Wizard of Oz, which gave her nightmares as a kid, and how much Darla reminded her of the Wicked Witch.
"Good for you." Tony shook his head, wishing he did more to defend her but at the same time excited and proud that she was able to stand up for herself.
Mike appeared suddenly next to Sabrina. He had lurked along the border of the clearing for some time now, only mingling with other people to refill his cup. At one point, he saw some guy with long hair wearing an I'M WITH STUPID T-shirt. Mike had always hated those kinds of shirts and he was already in such a foul mood that this coupled with seeing Darla torture Sabrina sent him over the edge.
"Don't air raid for that bitch!" he growled. His entire body twitched ferociously. His cup bent inside his grip and beer spilled out over his hand. "I hate that shit. It's like that Clint fucker in front of all his friends. Huh?" He jabbed Tony's shoulder. "Huh, motherfucker?!"
"Alright! Okay, Mike!" Tony knocked Mike's hand away. He had never seen his best friend so furious, and though he wouldn't have said so in front of Sabrina, it scared him.
Mike stamped his foot on the ground, casting his solo cup aside. "Dominant male monkey motherfucker!" He stormed away.
"God." Tony looked apologetically at Sabrina. He was so concerned about what she thought of the company he kept that it never crossed his mind Mike might actually do something dangerous.
The next thing he heard was a chorus of hollers and the unmistakable chanting of "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
No way in hell… Tony whirled around and saw a crowd forming. In between all the legs of his classmates, he could just make out Mike's head of curly hair lying on the ground. Two giant fists struck him again and again. Clint had been flirting with some girl named Tara a split second ago, but the way he crouched over Mike now, it was like no time had passed since he first threatened to beat up the skinnier boy.
"He did it," Tony murmured. "I can't believe it."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of red. It was Cynthia, leading Pink and Wooderson toward the battle. She cried, "You guys, that's Mike!"
"That crazy bastard!" Pink groaned, shoving his way through the crowd. Wooderson followed and by the time Tony arrived, they were dragging Clint off Mike.
"Come on, man!" Clint shouted. "You want some more? You fuckin bitch!" He tried to shake off Pink and Wooderson, but it was hopeless with each boy holding one of his arms. "Get the fuck off me!"
"It's over!" Pink said. "It's over, man!"
Wooderson let go of Clint's arm only to step in front of him and place a hand firmly on his chest. "It's done, man. You got him."
Clint finally stopped trying to force his way back to Mike, but continued yelling as Tony and Cynthia helped their wounded friend up. "Yeah, so I fuckin smoke! You want some more?"
"Dick!" Mike sobbed, his hands clutching his face. "You fuckin dick! You dick!"
"C'mon, quick," Cynthia said to Tony. "Let's get outta here."
Don't have to tell me twice, Tony thought. They led Mike through the crowd back to the El Camino. Sabrina was on her feet, but had stayed clear of the brawl, which was fine by Tony. He eased Mike into a sitting position.
"What a dick," Mike said. Tony gently urged his friend's hands off his face so he could get a look. He was grateful to find the damage could have been much worse. One of Mike's eyes was swelling up, and his lip was cut, but at least his nose wasn't broken and no teeth were missing. Cynthia volunteered to get some ice from a nearby keg.
Because he didn't know what else to do, Tony sat beside Mike and put his arm around him. "It's okay, man," he said. "You got him."
Darla was in bad shape. She got caught up in the crowd when the fight formed, barely able to stand on her own two feet and held up only by the bodies crowding around her. When the chaos cleared, she stumbled about in search of Simone or Nesi or Shavonne and couldn't find them. Instead, she found a few junior boys with several half-finished sixers squatting by a tree.
"Gimme one," she demanded, her words slurred almost beyond comprehension.
The junior boys looked the disheveled cheerleader up and down, laughing to each other. One of them stood up, gripping a fresh beer. Darla reached out an unsteady hand.
"I'll give you one," the junior said. "But you gotta give me something first."
He wrapped his arm around Darla and his hand started to snake toward her butt. Just before it reached its destination, it was jerked away by Benny.
Darla stared blankly at Benny, too far gone to realize what was happening and likely would have let the junior do a whole lot more than grope her. Benny didn't glance twice at her but kept a firm grip on the junior's wrist, twisting it just enough to be painful.
"I don't think you boys should be taking advantage of Darla when she's drunk," Benny said. "We all did that when we were younger, and it wasn't very nice."
Wincing through the agony of his twisted arm, the junior scoffed. "Great, so when it's our turn we have you keeping us in line."
Benny's eyes went cold and he spun the junior around, kicking him square in the ass and sending him sprawling into the dirt face-first. "Fuck you, man!" He pointed at the other boys. "Seriously, get lost. All of you! Get going before you get hurt."
The juniors obeyed, running so fast they left their beer behind. Benny watched as Darla struggled to bend down and pick up the can she asked for. He sighed. "You alright?"
"Oh, God." Darla made a face. "I think I'm starting to not feel so good."
Benny watched as she sunk to a sitting position and slumped against the tree. "Where's my Mona?" she asked, referring to Simone. "Where's Shavonne?" She called out, "Sparkles! Here, Sparkles!" Even in her terrible condition, she could remember the nickname she gave to Shavonne at their first beer bust years ago, when Shavonne drunkenly performed Seals and Crofts' "Diamond Girl" for all to hear.
Benny found this entire display depressing. All he wanted was to get back to his truck before Lariss found another guy to flirt with. He checked the area and decided no one else posed a threat to Darla. She could fall asleep right here by this tree if she needed to.
"Take it easy," he said to her. As a reward for what he considered chivalrous behavior, he took the rest of the juniors' beer with him.
Darla would spend the rest of the night there in the woods, unbothered by anyone but sitting next to a pool of her own vomit. She would swear to herself she would never get so wasted again, and she would keep that promise only until the next party. Eventually, Simone would help her clean up her act and the two would open an aerobics studio right out of college.
In the meantime, Simone searched for Pink. If she wasn't so drunk, she would have been mad at him for never meeting up with her like they agreed on earlier that day. She spotted him standing with Wooderson beside Melba Toast. She started making her way over, but it was slow going in her state.
Tony, Mike, Cynthia, and Sabrina all walked past Pink and Wooderson, stopping so Mike could thank them for their help with the fight and so Cynthia could give Wooderson her phone number.
"Alright," he grinned. "Hey, Aerosmith in three weeks. Front row seats, babe."
Cynthia said she would be glad to go with him.
"'Night, John-Boy," Pink said to Tony, and to Mike, "Ali!"
With this, the geeks left the party.
"So, who's buying breakfast?" Tony asked as they all climbed into Cynthia's car. This time, Mike got shotgun, both because he earned it and so Tony and Sabrina could sit together.
"Not me," Mike said.
"I will, I guess." Cynthia shrugged.
"Great." Tony turned to Sabrina. "Coming along?"
"Sure," she said with a smile.
Wooderson watched them go. He nudged Pink. "Cynthia, man? I like it, man. Very nice."
"Yeah?" Pink never found Cynthia to be his type, and wouldn't have guessed her to be Wooderson's either, but if everyone was happy it was fine by him. "Red's a good color for you."
"My favorite color."
Pink saw Simone heading their way and lowered his voice. "Hey, you seen Jodi around?"
Wooderson had indeed noticed Jodi and Kaye leaving the party a few minutes earlier. "Man, she left your ass."
"Really?" Pink was unable to hide his disappointment. "Well, you win some, you lose some."
Wooderson knew it wasn't as simple as that, but said nothing. If there was one thing about high school he didn't miss, it was lover's quarrels, triangles, and any related drama. He did, however, believe Pink and Jodi made for a good match. Maybe this was only because he remembered how smitten with each other they were back in Pink's freshman year, and as Pink's adoptive senior, Wooderson had rooted for them back then. Nevertheless, it would be the night of the Aerosmith concert when Wooderson would finally help Pink make a choice once and for all. Standing next to his wounded car, which Wooderson crashed into a tree on the way back from Houston because he was driving drunk and high, he would first call a tow truck and then urge Pink to call Jodi.
Presently, Simone arrived. Slater was not far behind.
"Guys, what's going on?" Pink asked. "What time is it?"
No one knew. Slater looked like he was sitting on a juicy thought of some kind, though, so Pink asked him what was up.
Grinning from ear to ear, Slater announced his idea. "Let's go smoke a joint, man! On the fifty-fuckin-yard line! In honor of your daddy Coach Conrad."
Wooderson broke into delighted laughter. "Man with a plan!"
Pink high-fived Slater. "We're there!" He walked over to Simone and slipped his arm around her. Sure, he much preferred Jodi, but now the hour was late and he was wasted. Simone would do for a while longer. He gave her a look equal parts apologetic and seductive, hoping she would be inclined to forgive him for avoiding her all night and possibly realize she was horny, too.
"You coming along?" he asked.
She nodded. "Okay."
Pink spotted Don and Shavonne nearby. The latter had finally given in to the former's advances, hanging off his arm and whispering flirtatious gibberish in his ear. "Don! Joint subcommittee meeting on the fifty-yard line in fifteen, you there?"
Don grinned. "Okay."
Wooderson waved the couple over. "Don, y'all ride with me, man. Let's hit it."
Don hurried over, leading Shavonne with both hands like an excited child at the toy store. Slater moved in front of the car, blocking their path. He aimed a crooked finger at Don. "You can ride with us, man, but you're ridin in the back, 'cause I got shotgun."
Riding in the back meant more room for Don and Shavonne to fool around. Don eagerly agreed and slid into the Chevy Chevelle's backseat, followed by an equally eager Shavonne. They were so clumsy getting in that Wooderson noticed and checked his seats for scratches.
"Hey, watch the leather, man!" he warned, but he was too stoned to sound strict and laughed at himself.
Jodi and Kaye had been walking through the woods for a while, now. They returned to the party just in time to see Don and Shavonne grabbing at each other as they entered Wooderson's car.
"Check it out." Kaye smirked. "Shavonne and Don's little mating ritual unfolding before us."
Jodi chuckled, but her face fell when she saw Pink and Simone getting into the former's El Camino. The car's headlights flicked on and it followed Melba Toast out of the clearing, toward the road.
"Do you ever just see people and think of us as simply products of lust and sex?" she asked. "At the moment of conception, we were all the farthest thing from our parents' minds."
"And most of the kids in our generation are mistakes, anyway," Kaye said. At least, she hoped so, because she knew she had been a mistake and misery loves company.
"Yeah, and I guess it wasn't legal to abort us, so here we're stuck." Jodi closed her eyes and downed half her beer. When her eyes opened again, she saw a boy a couple heads shorter than her walk past with Julie Simms on his arm. If she didn't know better, she'd say by his gait and shirt that she had grown up with that boy. "Hey! Hey, little brother."
Mitch stopped and turned around. He fixed Jodi with a cool grin and she almost burst into laughter. This was the same Mitch she held as a baby and cheered for when he won the Soapbox Derby in elementary school. Maybe he could fool Julie, but not her.
She placed a hand on her hip. "Is that a beer in your hand?"
Mitch glanced down at his hand—the one not occupied with Julie. "Why, yes it is." He took a drink, locking eyes with her as if daring her to say something about it.
Jodi called his bluff. "Have you had more than one of those tonight?"
Mitch shrugged. "A few, I guess. Nobody's counting." In fact, he was. He'd now consumed eight, which in his mind was impressive.
Jodi sighed. A part of her was proud, in a weird way. Mitch hadn't done anything except get older, but still, there he was and here she was. She supposed sometimes it was worth congratulating oneself simply for making it through life up to this point. Another part of her was sad, for similar reasons. After all, she'd been rather fond of the Mitch she held as a baby, no matter what she said to the contrary.
"Guess I might as well just get used to you being at the same social functions as me, huh?" Jodie nodded at Julie. "And hanging out with people I know. What time you supposed to be home, anyway?"
Mitch scoffed. "Oh geez, I dunno. Couple hours ago."
Jodi's brow raised. She looked at Kaye, who matched her expression. "That's bullshit. That's major bullshit. You know, Mom barely even let me out of the house when I was your age."
"Aw," Mitch said, not meaning it.
"Aw" is right. Jodi poked his shoulder. "And don't think for a minute she's not gonna be waiting up for you when you get home, 'cause she will be. I've been through it. And she's tough."
Mitch began to walk away. Any more time with his big sister and he would lose face with Julie. "Yeah, well…just don't ask her to take it easy on me."
Still confused about what she had done wrong earlier in the day, Jodi threw up her arms. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Mitch didn't reply and wandered off with Julie.
"Take it easy on him," Jodi muttered.
"Let's go smoke that joint," Kaye said.
Jodi nodded, retrieving said joint from her breast pocket. "He's in for a surprise."
The girls left the clearing to walk through the woods again, only this time they went the opposite way as before. This path took them past the town cemetery. They weaved in-between gravestones for a while, eventually circling back and re-entering the clearing by the moon tower.
Kaye looked up. "We should watch the sunrise from up there." This was something she had always wanted to do but for some reason never got around to. But it seemed to her that tonight was the night for checking things off lists. Jodi was making moves on Pink, freshmen were rebelling against O'Bannion, the former torture king of Lee High. Kaye couldn't say she had such glamorous goals, but damn it, she wanted to climb the moon tower and watch the sunrise. So she did, and Jodi joined her, of course.
The joint was burned out by the time they arrived at the top. Each took a last weak hit and Kaye let the blackened stump float down to the ground below. The girls sat on the moon tower with their legs hanging off and their fronts leaning against the guardrail. The sky was still mostly dark, but neither minded waiting a while.
Kaye strained to see the cemetery through all the trees. "I can't stop thinking about this tombstone I saw back there. This girl was only nineteen when she died. 1948 to 1967. It's just sad."
"Sucks," Jodi agreed. "But you can't let stuff like that bother you."
"But it's like, who's even thinking about her right now?"
"I dunno. People that knew her." Jodi nudged Kaye's shoulder playfully. "You're thinking of her."
"Because there's a rock in the ground with her name on it." Alcohol and weed and especially both combined usually made Kaye contemplative at best and depressed at worst, but tonight she looked especially far from the bold young woman who once led her fifth-grade class in a unified stomping session, resulting in the ceiling tiles falling to the floor and the evil Ms. Settergren giving them all detention.
"What's going to happen to all of us?" Kaye whispered. She rested her head on Jodi's shoulder. Her breath hitched. "I mean, everyone here tonight…within a year or so, we'll all be scattered and most of us will never see each other again."
This, unfortunately, was true.
Jodi put her arm around Kaye and held her tight. "Yeah, probably," she said. Part of her wanted that. How nice it would be to start over again in some other town with a whole new group of friends and teachers for company during her college years. At the same time, how petrifying a thought it was to know there would come a day not far from now when she would say goodbye forever to the people she had known all her life. She probably wouldn't even know it was her last goodbye when she said it. She would think to herself, I'll call them in a week to see how they're doing, or I'll find the time to go visit them, and she never would.
What a beautiful, bittersweet thing it was to grow up with a small, certain group of people. To learn the most intimate secrets of a few other girls, most of whom you called friends only because there was no one else to hang out with. Maybe you had nothing in common with them, but you'd known them all since kindergarten and twelve years later, you realized you were fond of them, even the mean ones.
Jodi found herself crying. "I'll never forget you no matter where I go in the world," she told her best friend.
Kaye was crying, too. "I know, hon. I know."
They sat on the moon tower for another hour, waiting to see the sunrise, and stayed another hour after that just because they could.
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