Amanda; Baltimore, MD; Present Day

As he gallivants around our luxury hotel room in only his pinstriped boxers, I notice he has a long torso just like his sister, and this makes me smile.  It’s oddly adorable that although his shaggy blonde haircut and Ray Ban sunglasses are independent style choices made by this boyishly attractive yet confident grown man, his long torso is a dead giveaway that he indeed came from humbler roots. 

            I know that long torso, because all the Maxwells have it.  Susie Maxwell, his mother, has been shaking that long torso to Diana Ross around her closet-sized kitchen, while making Monkey Bread, since we were kids.  And Morgan Maxwell, his sister, has stood in front of the mirror in their family's only bathroom with me, complaining about that long torso for hours, while I whined about my freckles or the fact that I’m only 5’1” on a good day.

            And now there's Will, who wears that familiar torso with such masculinity that it's somehow dreadfully appealing.  Last Christmas when he came back to Baltimore to visit his Mom and sister, I would have never predicted that in six months, I’d know every intimate facet of his body. 

I was still 17 then, and over at Morgan's house for Christmas Eve dinner.  The used BMW I'd just bought with the money from my part time job at Bertucci's was parked out front next to Susie's Hatchback.  This made me feel pretty adult at the time, despite the fact that I'd only been menstruating for a year and still had marks on my teeth from the braces I'd gotten off two months before.

            “Will’s coming from LA,” Morgan told me, while we sipped Eggnog in the basement on the sly.  I was excited about that—not because I had the standard crush on my best friend’s older brother, but instead because I got a rush out of shocking strangers with my disturbingly grown-up crudeness in conversation.  My innocent speckled face and puny stature always made an off-color quip or two seem extra wicked.  It was sort of a secret talent, like double-jointed elbows, which sometimes went over smashingly, but sometimes did not.  Occasionally, an adult would interpret such cheeky humor emerging from my innocent lips as indecent; but Will, the successful editor from Los Angeles, was famous in the Maxwell clan for his own devastating wit.  He would be an exceptional challenge, I thought.

           

"Why did you even notice me?" I ask Will, lying supine and clad in only a tank top amid the tussled sheets of the Hotel Monaco in Baltimore.  "I was drunk from all the Eggnog Morgan and I were swiping from your Mom that night; I don't even remember what I said."  I roll over onto my side, knowingly posing because I don't want him to see that I'm not effortlessly perfect like he seems to be.

            He stops what I perceive as gallivanting but what is really just looking for his cigarettes, and says, "You were telling such adult jokes.  It caught me off guard."  I've asked him this question and heard this answer once already, before our flirtation ever began; but I want him to say it again out loud, mostly so he'll remind himself, and won't come to his senses, thinking, What am I doing with this girl?

            "You intimidated me," the editor from exotic Los Angeles tells me, as he reaches into the pockets of his jeans splayed out on the floor.  He locates his cigarettes, and walks out onto the balcony of our room.  He drinks in a refreshing drag and turns around.  I stalk his every motion with my eyes.  He is a mesmerizing creature, blonde and strapping, yet graceful, like a steed.  Such brazen maleness seems almost cinematic.  "You told a dick joke and a race joke all wrapped in one.  It was so inappropriate.  I was fascinated by you."  I feel one of my eyebrows coyly rise.  This is an effect I practiced endlessly in front of Morgan a few summers ago, and now comes as organically as blinking.  He wipes a bead of perspiration from his golden brow, and, as though there is a magnet in my chest, I need to go to him.  I unearth from the pile of sheets the black bikini-cut underwear I picked out especially for today to seem sexy, but not like I was trying to be sexy.  I was going for a statement more along the lines of, "Of course I don't own underwear with cartoon frogs on it anymore." 

            I fumble out of bed, hoping he doesn't see me trip over the remote like an overexcited toddler.  Once upright, I attempt a saunter of sorts out onto the balcony, where I pluck a cigarette out of my own pack of Marlboro lights.  I'm not a smoker.  In fact, with each inhale, I feel tingly and a little afraid I'll get so buzzed that I'll tumble right off the balcony to my death.  But it's a risk I take for the same reason I pose and wear stringy underwear—that being my need to show him only the best of me: the part of me that says phrases like "it was a real Catch-22" and "what a clusterfuck;" the part of me that watches "Madmen" and knows about wine; the part that gives stellar fellatio and can blow-dry her hair so fast he won't even wonder when I'll be ready; the part that I wish could be all of me, all the time.

            "Well, I hope the fascination hasn't wavered," I reply, leaning up against the sliding glass door.  "I can't always guarantee that what exits this mouth is going to be quality."  He shakes his head and exhales through a smile.

            "I don't think there's anything you could say or do that I wouldn't love."  I feel myself blush at this.  The sincerity in his voice is unmistakable.  But still, I don't drop my coquettish pose against the door.

"Who's ready for Christmas cookies?" Susie Maxwell chimed, already flushed in the face from her half-glass of Eggnog.  I remember Will was sucking down Jack Daniels like hot cocoa, an act I would come to know was not just special to holidays, and I wondered if I would build up such an impressive tolerance when I grew up.

            "Not me," he said.  "I'm going out to walk Pepper."  Morgan and I glanced at one another, feeling smug that we both knew he was actually going out to smoke.  I imagined what Will looked like with a cigarette in his mouth.  This was a tantalizing thought, because not too long after, I was picturing Morgan and me, older, sneaking out to escape the stresses of family reunions, having a cigarette with him.  I expected Morgan was picturing the same thing, because although he was her brother, he seemed just as mysterious as any other cool adult, since they hadn't lived under the same roof in ten years.  We liked knowing that someone as together as Will had a vice, one he couldn't even hide from us.

A breeze pierces the thick atmosphere of summer in Baltimore and combs back his whiskey-colored hair.  The sun is sinking quickly behind the distant city skyline.

            "I forgot what summer evenings on the East Coast felt like," he says, leaning into the cool draft.  "The heat," he breathes.  "It's oppressive."  He puts out his cigarette on the railing and leaves the butt on the plastic outdoor chair with the rest, to throw away later.  It astounds me how fast he can suck down a cigarette.

           

"What does a nicotine craving feel like?" I'd asked him earlier this morning, after picking him up from the airport.  We were driving to our hotel.  "I've never had an addiction."

            I saw him exhale in my periphery, and say, "Like feeling hungry in your brain."

           

Only halfway through my Marlboro Light, I'm happy to extinguish it, and I tell him, "Well, let's get you the hell inside, you spoiled California boy."

            "Spoiled?" he grins.  "Look where you are!  Last night, you were sleeping in a twin size bed in your parents' house, and today you're in the most expensive hotel suite in Baltimore!"  In response to his indication of my embarrassing circumstances, I slowly and specifically uncurl my right middle finger and shoot him a playful glare.  He gasps in teasing offense and suddenly wraps one of his brawny hands around that very middle finger and the other, along with his whole arm, around my waist.  He hoists me up in the air, and I am helpless at his mercy.  As I kick and scream in delight, he carries me inside and slams me down, hard, on the cushiony white expanse of our room's king size bed.  My body bounces up and down from the force.  I shriek with gleeful rage, and from the bed, grab him by the waistband of his boxers, and pull him so he topples onto the bed with me.

            The childishness of the encounter is comforting.  In that moment, I feel like he sees me as old enough to handle him, and I see him as young enough to let me misbehave a little.  He rolls over on his stomach and looks at my face.  Apparently, this interaction has synced our thoughts, because he asks me, "Do you think our age difference is very obvious to other people?"

            I look into his eyes, and catch my freckled, wide-eyed reflection in his pupils.  Morgan, when standing before the mirror with me, would often say that if it someone were to spot me walking my Golden Retriever down the street in pajama pants and no makeup, I could be mistaken for a little kid; but if someone were to catch me in my trench coat and share in a conversation that wouldn't last long enough for them to notice my childlike features, I could be mistaken for 35.

            I quickly review this assessment of my image and admit, "Well, I definitely don't look older than 18."  Then I scan his face.  His skin looks smooth and glowing, and it's dusted in 5 o'clock shadow.  His lips are full and pink, his chin strong, with a dimple in the center.  But it is his pool-water blue eyes that are the most appealing, as they lock with my green ones, and flicker with a youth that seems even newer than mine.  "But you could be 23," I declare.  "You definitely don't look almost 30.  I wouldn't see us and think there were a big difference in age."  He smiles and lies back down, looking up at the ceiling. 

"Will never does anything he doesn't absolutely want to do," Morgan told me after Christmas Eve dinner.  We were sitting on the sofa bed, where Will would be sleeping later.  "He never does anything just to make someone feel good; he's never fake.  So, if he says something, you know it's true."

I believed her completely, because even though Will was older and lived far away, you could tell there was an unspoken understanding between the two siblings.  If you watched how each of them acted—their reactions to certain jokes or events, how they identically furrowed their brows in thought—you could see how Morgan would grow up to be just like Will; and that meant when he was 17, Will must have been just like Morgan.  This notion twinged me with jealousy.  I envied such a blatant indication of what my best friend would be like when she was older.  It seemed like a leg up in some way, like by having a connection to this remarkable older person she was somehow guaranteed to be just as noteworthy, and soon.  Will was so unlike anyone I knew; he was quick and self-assured, and if Morgan, with whom I shared such an intimate link, could have a bond with someone like that, then I wanted one, too.  I knew, however, that it would not come easy.  

            We heard footsteps thumping down the stairs, and looked up to see that it was Will, fresh from outside.  He peeled off his plaid Woolrich coat and tossed it onto the sofa bed.  Morgan and I shivered as the fabric flew through the air, radiating a chill onto our skin.

            "Hey ladies, mind if I use the computer down here?" 

            "Go for it," Morgan said.  Will slid into the creaky wooden chair, and pressed the spacebar, illuminating Susie's 2007 Desktop Mac.  He seemed even to click the spacebar with a crispness that recreational computer users lacked.

            "Can't avoid the computer even on Christmas, Mr. LA Editor?" I teased.  "How do you function with so many addictions?"  Still a little buzzed from the Eggnog and holiday cheer, I was feeling bold. 

            "I have no idea," he smirked, maneuvering the mouse expertly through his Gmail.  I peeked at him as he deleted several messages from a  "Maddie4ever@hotmail.com." 

            "Exchanging flirtations with a fourth grader, are you?" I pried, nosily examining his inbox.

            "Ugh, hardly," he said.  "It's this chick I took out on one date.  She won't leave me alone.  I didn't give her my number, so she just keeps emailing me.  Nightmare."  Morgan snickered.  He was inviting us into a little bit of his enigmatic personal life.  Whether it was from the bottle of Jack or not, we didn't care.  We were gripped.

            "You must have really rocked her world," I remarked, inserting facetiousness into my tone, but desperately hoping he'd elaborate.

            "Probably," he answered, dryly.  "I took her to this wine bar in Hollywood that had some ridiculous mood lighting.  I had no idea it'd be that fancy.  One drink, and now she won't stop sending me nude photos." 

            Morgan gasped.  I stifled a similar reaction, and tried to keep my cool.

            "Oh, that's right.  I know Maddie4ever@hotmail.com," I played along.  "Those nudes are circulating nationwide, actually.  I have some on my phone right now.  Did she send you the one with the hose?  Pretty cheesy."  Will shot me a half-grin from his station at the computer.

            "You are too quick for me, Ms. Morrell," he said.  I felt myself bite the inside of my bottom lip.  He knew my last name.

The late June sky is a glowing Cobalt color now.  Will is lying on his back.  I'm on my stomach next to him, instead of modeling on my side like before.  His eyes are closed, as I circle my right forefinger over the scruffy dimple in his chin.

            "Why do you keep touching that spot?" he asks, tensing his jaw.

            "I don't know."  He pats down his chin like he's setting it back in place, and rolls over to look at me.

            "You have so many freckles," he observes, running his eyes up and down my cheeks.

            "Yeah, I'm deformed."  I bury my face in the sheets.

            "Yep, completely deformed," he agrees, jokingly. 

            "Not all of us can be perfect Hollywood specimens," I mock, snapping my head up.  "Why do I even waste my time with someone so beautiful and yet so cruel?"  He smirks.

            "I don't know.  You're the one who stole my number out of Morgan's phone."

            "True," I admit.  The right side of my mouth upturns; this ability to banter back and forth so gracefully with him is one thing I'm never concerned will go wrong.

            He yawns, and my heart rate quickens.  Every time he does something I've never seen him do before, I feel like I know him better.

            "Wanna take a pre-dinner nap with me?" he asks.  We've had an active day, and I feel myself tiring as well.

            "Yes," I whisper.  Will slips out of bed, and with me curled up at the headboard, he smoothes out the sheets and comforter until the whole thing looks like a giant marshmallow.  I've never slept in a king size bed before.

            "Crawl in there, babe," he says, and I do.  I lie sideways, facing the painting of Baltimore's Inner Harbor on the wall, and am surprised when I feel Will's burly figure cuddle up behind me.  The idea of sleeping in the same bed as him is so foreign and thrilling, I am nervous I won't be able to fall asleep.  My blood pumps quickly as the sunlight in the room darkens one more shade.  Then, I feel an itch crawl into my lower back, but dare not reach back to scratch it, because I don't want him thinking I'm a restless sleeper.  I become anxious lying in bed with Will, realizing that once I'm asleep, I won't have any control over my poses and phrasings anymore.  I'm just scared that in the middle of the night, if he wakes up and sees me in the only position I know how to sleep in—a tiny ball with a pillow between my legs and my hands gripped around the sheets like a teddy bear—I'll be helpless to looking like the little girl I want so badly not to be. 

            Then I hear him whisper, "Now this is what I've been looking forward to for so long—just to sleep next to you, Amanda."  At the sound of my name leaving his lips, not "babe" or "Ms. Morrell," but my real first name, my body fills up with this visceral warmth.  This sensation seems somehow to settle the absurdly rapid pulse in my body; after a few quiet minutes, my breath falls into the rhythm of his, and I relax.  I tuck myself into the curve of him; and my tiny frame, of which I'm used to being so self-conscious, seems to lock perfectly into the safe, warm wall of his distinctive torso.

            "We fit," he says softly, as if again our thoughts have synced.  I close my eyes. 

            As I lay there beneath the comforter, so snug and at ease, my mouth unexpectedly opens to say something.  I don't know what's going to come out, but my mouth is open.  I feel a sudden rush, as if I were about to jump out of a plane with a parachute that may or may not open.  I feel this desire to tell him something, right now; a secret, I don't know what.  Maybe lying next to him under the covers, I want to tell him that I've always thought he looked like Kurt Cobain; or that I stole a baby picture of him from his Mom's house the day he called to tell me I was the smartest person he'd ever known; or that I pretended not to hear him ask me to open the champagne today because I don't know how to operate a corkscrew; or that I wrote a song about him and it sounds like a real country tune; or that I tried on my mother's wedding dress last night and cried. 

            But I don't.  I want to.  He's breathing into my back and he's warm and I want to trust him, right now, in this moment.  I should trust him; he trusts me, and I should tell him a secret.  But before I know it, my mouth closes; and I don't. 

            A few minutes later, on the edge of sleep, I wonder to myself if anyone's ever told him he snores, as I take the pillow from under my head and tuck it between our legs.

Jack; Woodside, CA; Late 70's

I inched away as far as I could towards my side of the tent.  I tried to pretend that I was alone in there, or that I was in the middle of some vague and off-color dream.  He wasn’t touching me, but the heat of his body and breath made it harder and harder to ignore his proximity.  I was in that twilight state between consciousness and sleep where you can’t truly formulate solid thoughts; but I remember the very real sensation of lying on my side with my nose almost touching the tent’s canvas wall, just wishing that he’d wake up, realize what he was doing, and move back to his side of the tent.  I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right, but luckily within a half hour or so, I had fallen back asleep.

________________

Most people at Zionon were weird, and Chris kind of was too, but he was my friend.  We were seventeen.  I had only been at Zionon since I was fourteen, when my Leftist father and his wife decided to move me and my two grade-school-aged half-sisters into the Woodside, California commune, which was located a little less than an hour south of San Francisco.  We had lived in Reno before we were deported to the commune.  My dad had a job teaching Greek mythology to delinquent kids in a juvenile detention center.  His wife made documentaries about “Jews in the West.”  I didn’t really know too much about it.  But it was 1977 and the Socialist Residential Community thing was really happening, so of course the man who had been toting around a communist card in his wallet for twenty years and his kosher granola docu-wife had to jump on the bandwagon.  I didn’t really know what to expect of Zionon when they told us we’d be moving there, but I had a strong feeling it wasn’t going to be as good as our life in Reno.  I had moved around quite a bit back when I lived with my mother.  So, when I moved in with my dad and his new family in Reno when I was twelve years old, into a real house, I knew it was the best living I was gonna have.  I mean, my bed had springs.  Dinner was served almost every night.  Our front yard even had a gate, like something you’d see in front of a mansion. 

Zionon was unlike Harlem or East LA or anywhere else I’d ever lived, or even been.  It actually looked kind of like summer camp only I immediately noticed that there was no canoeing or general feeling of all-American revelry.  There were bunk beds though.  Barracks for every age group and gender.  And there was always free peanut butter.  But beyond that, it became quite clear, quite quickly that Zionon was not the sort of place you’d spend the summer for fun. 

See, the concept of this community was straight up Socialist.  Everyone had to live meagerly, so no fancy clothes or material luxuries, and we had to perform assigned chores on the grounds every day to ensure a communal Worker mentality.  Our daily indoctrination in the Zionon Utopia was that ever leaving it would mean failure.  Our leader and founder was Chuck Aldritch, a former alcoholic.  He worshipped every line of Emerson and fancied himself a philosopher.  Chris, and most folks in Zionon, were mesmerized by Chuck, and parroted every one of his platitudes as if they came from God himself.  But the most important and distinctive quality of Zionon was that every single night, for a period that could last up to four hours, there was this game, a Palaver, which everyone was supposed to Play.  It was called The Zionon Palaver; and each member of the community, no matter if you were eight years old or eighty, had to gather at a central meeting place, where you’d meet your PalaTroupe, or P-Troupe, as we were conditioned to call it.  The sixty or so members of each P-Troupe were divided again in to groups of fifteen by a PalaTroupe Leader (P-Leader, of course).  My P-Leader was Mario Bombari, a name fitting for the ex-con and drug addict who had joined Zionon five years ago in an attempt to turn his life around. 

Mario would lead our sect of the PalaTroupe to a common room, where we engaged in what was something like a group therapy session, only there was no topic or direction or structure.  Basically, the Palaver consisted of individuals standing up and raising whatever problems or beefs they had with others in the group, so everyone could tactlessly scream out one another’s faults until every last point was exhausted.  There were no rules, except for no physical violence, and everyone went at it with a vengeance.  One particular Palaver in April of my senior year, all of the P-Troupe’s maniacal heat got placed directly one me.  It was a particularly extreme Socialist from LA named Jack Beamer who threw the first stone.

“What I’d like to know is how you, McGreggor, get off thinking you’re so much better than the rest of us, that you have to run off like some elitist sonovabitch to a goddamn public, government-funded Uni-fucking-versity.  Berkeley?  Really??  My god.  Do you even understand the bureaucracy?  It’s like Satan himself.  I’ll tell you what, you are turning quite into a spoiled little snit, you know that, McGreggor?  An elitist, spoiled little snit.”  And this was only the beginning.  A snippy ex-aspiring-actress named Linda Garrett stood up next. 

“Have you not learned a single thing here?” she snipped.  “Oh, no, that’s right, of course you haven’t.  I spoke with Mr. Byrd from the school the other day.  Turns out Mr. McGreggor has never even stepped a foot inside our school!”  Gasps and commentary ensued.  Linda was referring to the Zionon high school.  It was true; I didn’t attend.  “No wonder,” she continued, stirred from her crowd’s reaction.  “You’re just going to go to stick your bony little self right in the middle of the System.  And you could’ve been a real productive member of this community.  Makes me just sick.”   I tried to look somewhat ashamed or at least self-reflective, so the Players would think they were having a real effect on me. 

The storm of Jack and Linda’s frenzied followers blurs in my mind, because true to the cult-like mentality of Zionon, and the Palaver itself, everyone in the P-Troupe threw an absolute tantrum at the news of my recent college acceptance.  Well, not everyone.  Lucky for me, Chris was always the quietest one.  You never quite knew what thoughts he kept hidden, but in the expanse of screaming Players, he was easy not to notice.  

Th  e Palaver was the fundamental Zionon activity, and it was designed to build character; but it felt more like the longest and most unnecessary fight amongst the most dysfunctional family on the Earth.  Much of this was due to people like Mario, Jack, and Linda, who were just a few examples of Zionon’s particular inhabitants.

Two groups of people converged at the commune.  One was comprised of recovering drug addicts, dope fiends as we called them, while the other consisted of “Lifestylers,” radical Socialists (like my dad and his wife), and their kids, many of whom might have been fairly normal except that their parents moved them to Zionon when their brains were still too malleable to grasp what a Socialist Commune even was.

Chris was a combination of the two types.  His mom dumped him in Zionon after he got caught smoking pot at age thirteen.

I met him because on the day I moved in, he was the one guy who came up and asked where I was from and if I’d like a piece of Juicy Fruit gum.  Gum, along with a slew of other normal things, wasn’t allowed at Zionon, but he wanted to make me feel welcome I think.  Chris was a loner type of kid.  But for some reason he came up to talk to me that day, and because of it, we became friends.

I didn’t go to the Zionon School like he did though.  I had a very justifiable hunch that they weren’t teaching their students English and American history, but were instead brainwashing them to spell the alphabet Z to A and to believe that anything our forefathers did to establish this Capitalist nation was irrelevant, because we were going to be the generation to change it.  Bloodcurdling stuff.  So I stayed under the radar, so no one would complain that I hitched a ride every day with a guy who taught at a Junior High School in San Francisco, near where I attended a magnet high school called Lowell.  And until Linda Garrett’s outburst during that Palaver in April, I had done this easily.  But every evening I returned, and after being subjected to two to four hours of the Zionon Palaver, I didn’t really hang out with anyone but Chris.  I tried to ignore how aware I was of the bullshit that constituted the lessons he’d been learning in school that day.  But with a touch of self-induced denial, that wasn’t so hard to do.

Chris and I both really liked baseball, so we’d discuss the new players and stats of the Giants for hours some nights– always superficial shit.  We’d talk about chicks too.  Chris had this weird social anxiety, so he never really talked to girls, but he could definitely talk about them.  Zionon was pretty small, so if a girl got hot over the summer or something, it was easy to notice.  So we talked about that sometimes.  But we didn’t shoot the breeze about anything as much as we did about hiking.  Chris had probably left the Zionon grounds a total of five times since joining three years before, and he never got too far; so when we talked about climbing Half Dome at Yosemite or taking six months after high school to conquer the Appalachian Trail, this rare and distinctive grin would flicker in the muscles of his face. 

I’d never been anywhere unless forced to, so I got a kick out of the fantasies too.  The wild outdoors just seemed like the most opposite place on Earth to Zionon.  And wherever that was, is where I wanted to be.

There were definitely things Chris wouldn’t talk about, though.  He rarely mentioned his mother or much about his life before Zionon.  But, every now and then he talked about finding his dad, who walked out on Chris and his mom when he was a little kid.  I could tell that Chris felt more at home with me than he did with anyone else at Zionon, but the whole time we were there, I don’t think I ever stood closer than two or three feet from the kid.

By May of 1980, Chris was graduating from the Zionon High School and I was graduating from Lowell.  About a month earlier, I’d received my acceptance letter from the University of California Berkeley, so I was already itching with anticipation of my imminent release.  I showed Chris the letter.  He stared at it for a second, and then handed it back without saying a word.  For reasons that I didn’t even try to comprehend due to utter frustration, Chris was loyal to the commune, and hadn’t applied to any schools or looked for any jobs in San Francisco.  I just knew he would stay forever.  See, despite all the years of reliably free peanut butter, I felt no obligation to give back to Zionon before getting the hell out of there, but I did feel an obligation to Chris.  He was my best friend.  And for the last few weeks of our senior year, I could sense some kind of nervous urgency in him.

So I figured out a way to borrow the car that belonged to the man who’d been giving me a lift to school everyday, so I could use it the weekend before I left for Berkeley, allowing Chris and me to drive two hours north to a national park with some decent trails where you could pitch a tent.  One of the things my dad actually owned was a tent, which he agreed to loan me, so everything was all set up. 

When I told Chris, he couldn’t speak. I was actually shocked at just how overjoyed he must have been because out of nowhere, he was hugging me.  I had never seen Chris shake someone’s hand or even make eye contact for very long, but all of the sudden he was gripping me so tight, I was almost the one who wanted to pull away.  But I figured he was just grateful for the surprise.  I mean, this was going to be the biggest adventure of his life so far, and definitely the most fun either of us had ever had. 

So, on a Saturday morning in May, Chris and I loaded the only car we had ever driven in together, and headed north to Point Reyes National Seashore.  Man, did that drive rev us up.  Hitting Route 1, which runs along the California coastline, was like simultaneously hitting every single epic stretch of highway to anywhere in the world.  For the first time in my life, I felt like a regular teenage kid taking a trip with my bud. 

So, we arrived at Point Reyes and unloaded our tent from the car, plus a backpack full of water bottles, sandwiches, and a Map of Grand Canyon, which we knew was absolutely useless at Point Reyes but brought anyway because it fit this image in our minds of real explorers and their maps.  Supplies in tow, we picked a trail that went up a mountain to a waterfall further inland.  All the hikes were pretty backcountry, which made us feel like real hotshot adventurers.  The hike took us about 6 hours round trip.  Chris and I didn’t really talk too much during the whole thing.  Talking was what we did with a P-Troupe of lunatics in a gray-walled building, or what we did before bed out of boredom, while daydreaming of the open air.  Now, we had the forest and the smell of the sea, the burn of lactic acid in our throats from climbing the massive West Coast peak, and the surreal sensation that we were actually doing what we only ever talked about while laying in our bunks within the walls of the Woodside commune.  I caught Chris’s eye when we reached the peak 4.5 miles inland.  He had this subtle squint and steady gaze that made it look as if he’d seen views from the top of mountains a hundred times before, like he had always been an adventurer.  We felt like men on that peak.  At least I know I did.

It was nearing dusk as we arrived back at the campgrounds about half a mile from the car.  After gnawing on a couple of peanut butter sandwiches, Chris and I set up my dad’s tent and filled it with the blankets and pillows we’d grabbed from our bunks.  By 10 PM, I was beat, so I crawled in, and Chris followed not too long after.  It was close quarters in there, but we were so exhausted from our day, I figured it wouldn’t bother him too much.  I drifted right to sleep.

It was probably about 1 AM the first time I woke up to what I thought was Chris rolling over in his sleep.  I was in one of those three-quarters-asleep phases when I felt his hand brush against my lower body.  It was pretty startling, especially since I’d been sleeping alone in a twin size bunk for three years.  But without the alertness to think, I swept his hand away and quickly fell back asleep.  What felt like a few hours later, I felt it again, Chris’s hand creeping over the same place on my body.  It was so weird; I had never noticed before how much he moved in his sleep.  I rolled over.  Later in the night, I half woke again to the feeling of Chris’s hot breath and the weight of his body inching towards me.  I tried to ignore how uncomfortably small this tent seemed, and scooted as much as I could towards my side.  I had this eerie, uncomfortable feeling that something in that tent was not quite right, but tried not to think anything of it, since I couldn’t even lucidly describe it.  I fell back asleep maybe half an hour later to the sound of Chris’s oddly heavy breathing.  I chose to believe that our hike had just made him restless or something.  Even so, I remember distinctly that whatever was going on in that tent in the wee hours of that morning in May, definitely felt wrong.

The next day, it was noticeable that the energy between Chris and me had shifted from the minute I woke up.  I rolled over to see the sunshine peaking through the leaves and into our tent, and to see Chris laying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling.  I sat up, unzipped the door of the tent, and crawled out.  When I asked if Chris was ready to hit the road, he didn’t respond; he just lay there in the tent for a while until finally surfacing.  I decided maybe he was just sad that our trip was over.  He asked if he could drive us home, and I told him sure.  We didn’t talk at all during the car ride, and about halfway down Route 1, I noticed that his eyes were kind of misty, which freaked me out in a way. 

When we finally arrived back at the Zionon grounds, I had to start getting my stuff together so I’d be ready to turn around and leave to go to Berkeley by bus the next morning.  When 5 PM rolled along and it was time for the Zionon Palaver, I watched the buildings empty of people, my bunk members, including Chris.  I skipped the Palaver that night.  I knew my absence wouldn’t matter, plus I had some packing to do.  But I guess I really should have gone, because Chris didn’t sleep in his bed that night, and I couldn’t find him anywhere the next morning. 

As I was waiting for the 10 AM bus to Berkeley, I was struck by a memory of one of the first times Chris had ever really talked to me about finding his dad.

“Yeah, I think he might be in Vegas,” he said.  “My mom said once that he had this, well, I guess you could call it a dream… of opening his own pawn shop.  And I mean, if I was gonna open my own pawn shop, I would do it in Vegas.  Doesn’t that make sense?’  I nodded of course.  “Now, I would just get ahold of a Nevada phonebook and look him up, but I doubt he’d be doing all that officially.  I bet it’s more of an under the table operation.  I’d have to go there and physically look for him.  But, you know, I don’t know… I’d have to take the bus and all that…”

________________

I recall specifically the moment I realized what Chris was trying to do with me in the tent on that night in May.  It was a few weeks after I’d started classes at Berkeley.  When the realization struck me, I was putting a load of whites into the machine.  A weakening sensation crept into my body as it all started to make sense, that there was such overwhelming, secret desperation in somebody about whom I thought there was nothing else to learn.  I could read through every cultish motive at Zionon, but I couldn’t even see the kid standing two or three feet from me. 

But I suppose the whole encounter in that tent was a fitting send-off from the commune. 

“Maybe one day you and me could both take the bus to Vegas,” I remember Chris saying.  “We could gamble and see all the buildings and billboards.  I could look for my Dad.  Stay a week or so.  We’d make a real trip of it.”  I half smiled at him and wondered why anyone would go so far from Zionon to stay only a week.

Virginia; New Orleans, LA; Late 40's

I felt one of the clacks of my heels get stuck between the cobblestones, and with all the sheet music piled between my skinny fingers, I whispered a tiny prayer that gravity wouldn’t get the best of me.  Dusk was kissing daylight goodnight as the moon took down her hair in preparation for this sultry summer evening.  I wish my hair could have looked as nice.  My right-sweeping peekaboo bangs were already coiling, thanks to the oppressive Louisiana air that could soak a man’s open mouth before even a single drop of ale slid down his dusty throat. 

Only three more blocks to the club.  Ladies’ jazz night happened just once every other month, and I was not about to miss the signup hour.  Dixieland was back in our ears, and with a popularity now among Creoles, blacks, and white folk alike, and I wanted a piece of it myself.  I’d been practicing “I’ve Found a New Baby” on Paw Paw’s piano for nearly three weeks, and had the red dress that made my waist look tiny as Ginger Rogers on a good day tailored for just the occasion.

Two more blocks.  I could smell the cloud of sweet perfume coming from the club, which, in contrast to the usual odors of tobacco and gin, caused my cheeks to dimple, since even from three-hundred feet away on Dauphine Street, a person could tell tonight was ladies’ night at Maison Bourbon.

One block away, and I couldn’t be sure whether the loud thumping in the air was coming from a drummer warming up at the club or my very own heart.  I was almost there, and the cobblestones had thus far spared me; but the horse and buggies had not, because suddenly out of the green New Orleans night, the last horse drawn pile of wheels in the French Quarter came hurling right in front of me, and I fell.  Notes and staffs on tattered paper surrounded me in a hurricane before drifting down to the cobblestones next to my clumsy bones.  The tumble thankfully didn’t injure anything except for my chances of getting to Maison Bourbon on time.  From my pathetic position on the ground, I looked up at the moon and was sure by how high it was in the summer sky that it had turned ten o’clock already, and the order of performers would be announced soon. 

Lucky for me, it was just the hour when most dinner dates were either long since over or just beginning, so the only people on the street to see my embarrassing descent were tarot card peddling gypsies.  There is simply no graceful way to recover from a fall like that.  I swept up my papers as fast as my nervous hands could scurry, and picked myself up off the cobblestones.  First time I’d ever worn my red dress, and it already looked as though I’d been crawling up and down a chimney.  I dragged my feet over to a bench next to a streetlight, took off my heels, and placed them beside me, as if I were in my very own bedroom.

If only I hadn’t been such a stupid girl and kept better track of the time, I wouldn’t be in such a mess.  I’d be in the club all signed up to perform and sucking on the olive of a dry martini, waiting for my turn, winking at some girl’s boyfriend who’d be trying not to flirt with me.  I could always seem to keep the time smooth and steady throughout each measure of my music, but never in the business of showing up for engagements.

Under the pale glow of the streetlight on Dauphine, I put my sheet music back in order and leafed through it carefully to make sure the fall hadn’t caused any of it to tear.  Then, in an attempt not to make the night a total pity, I laid each sheet right out on the bench in a row and started playing, in thin air, humming the tune along to my invisible piano and counting the beat in my head.

1-2-3-and

Everybody look at me, 


Happy girlie you will see, 4,

I've got someone nice, oh, gee! 4,

Oh, joy, what bliss! 2-3-4

I heard the first flare of the trumpets at Maison Bourbon, which somehow fell right in with my imaginary piano playing.  I stomped my bare calloused feet to the beat I was drumming under my peekaboo doo, and threw my head back like there were performers before me, other than a couple of Dauphine street rats, to behold the performance.

Sweetest kiss, what a kiss, full of bliss, can't resist, somehow! 1-2-3-4!

Just as I felt my lips twist open, about to turn my hums into lyrical belts, I felt a hand on my bobbing left shoulder; and let me tell you this stopped my performance right away.  I thought I’d avoided my public embarrassment of the day, but no such luck. 

My eyes shot open to reveal a rather old but elegant, colored man in what I could tell from the glow of the streetlight overhead was a handsome blue suit and bow tie. 

“Miss,” he said to me, exasperated.  I noticed his mahogany skin was glistening with perspiration.   “I was in the horse and buggie that came by.  I saw your fall.  Terribly sorry.  Are you alright?”  I could feel the blood bubbling from my heart straight into my cheeks.  To mask my mortification, I folded my arms into a spoiled little pose, and focused on wrinkling my brow, hoping the forced vexation would unflush my face.

“I thought the horse and buggies were supposed to finish their tours around the Quarter at eight o’clock sharp,” I replied, tartly.

“Yes, that’s certainly true,” the man answered, having caught his breath.  His voice felt oddly familiar in my ears.  It was raspy, like his throat was filled with too many Louisiana clouds; but it was also dynamic, waxing and waning from word to word, like a fine trumpet solo or the moon.  “I’m not a tourist,” he continued to tell me, apology gleaming in his eyes.  “I lived in New Orleans for a very long time.  I’m only back on a brief visit.  The late-night horse and buggie ride was just a special treat.”  He smiled widely, bearing kindness and a set of glistening white teeth.  He glanced down at the sheet music spread across my lap.  “You must be a musician,” he crooned, his intonation metrically rising and falling.  “I saw you playing.”

“Oh, not me,” I exhaled bashfully, half hoping this raspy-voiced man would spare me my embarrassment and leave, but half hoping he’d continue talking, even if not to me, just so I could bathe in the sounds of his speaking voice.

“Well you surely looked like one to me,” he waxed.  I felt my lips upturn.  “My name is Louis,” he waned, and bowed his head, respectfully. 

“Virginia,” I heard myself whisper, still mesmerized and perplexed by how peculiarly familiar he seemed.  “Are you a musician?”  He grinned shyly, this time without teeth, and I thought maybe I’d embarrassed him too.

“I play a little music.”  I felt myself almost beginning to count the beat of his rhythmic timbres.

A little music 2-3-4,

             “Mostly jazz,” his voice sizzled.  I peeked up at the moon, and saw that it was in the very middle of the sky.  He, too, realized it was getting late indeed.

“Well, nice to meet you, Ms. Virginia,” he scatted.  “Sorry again.”

The man bowed his head to me again and spun on his heel in the direction of Burgundy Street, where I saw he’d reunite with his private horse and buggie.  Seemed awfully ritzy for a colored man to have such particular arrangements with the French Quarter.  Coming to my more logical senses, I realized I’d been so distracted by the colored man’s voice, I hadn't even registered his name until just then.  And as I continued to watch him glide off to Burgundy Street, I felt a surprising breeze accompanied by what sounded like a raspy swell of “As Time Goes By.”

Gentlemen and their dates tumbled out of saloons, and I took this as a cue to re-adorn my heels, and make my way towards the streetcar.  I collected the leaves of music, and wistfully swayed my red satin-clad hips in the opposite direction of Bourbon Street.  With distant wines of trumpets from the club still in my ear, I hummed the final verse of “I’ve Found a New Baby.”  And the moon, as if winding down along with my melody, began pinning up her hair.

Katie; Zion National Park, UT; Mid 70s

Katie rolled over in her sleeping bag and gripped her stomach.  She was experiencing intense stomach pain from the nausea and also from the hysterical laughing fits she and Mel broke out in every time they heard a huge farting sound from the boys’ tent, which had to be at least 30 feet away.

            “Ughhhhhhhhh,” she groaned.  “I want to puke, but I can’t, because I keep laughing.”  As Katie thrashed around like a wild woman, the loud rustling sound of the synthetic outer part of her dad’s old sleeping bag filled the girls’ tiny tent.  Mel cracked up.

            “Stop kicking around like a psycho!” she choked out through her cackling.  “You’re gonna knock over the lantern! ”  Mel raised her eyebrows smugly at Katie, who momentarily gave up the battle against the demon in her stomach and flopped flat on her back.  “Besides, I feel fine.”

            “No duh you feel fine,” Katie whimpered.  “You only had like, two bites of beans.”

            “Yeah, because I don’t trust Brad’s cooking, and for good reason,” Mel responded, snickering.  “I mean, maybe you should just go into the woods and shit your brains out.  You’d probably feel better.”  Katie shot Mel a horrified look.

            “Ewwww!  Mel, you are seriously twisted.”

            Pbgghhbbvfghhhhhhhbbbbpppff

Another gaseous blast from Brad and Franky’s tent echoed through the campgrounds.

            “HAHAHAHAHA,” the girls wailed.

            “Good lord,” began Katie, rubbing her own tormented belly.  “I wonder if it’s coming from both of them, or just one.”

            “I don’t know, but those sound a little too hard core just to be coming from one person,” analyzed Mel.  “I bet the really squeaky ones that go off one right after the other are coming from Franky, and those long, gnarly explosions like the one we just heard are coming from Brad.”

“Oh god, Mel,” groaned Katie in disgust.

“I know.  What geeks.”

The girls lay in silence for a minute until a couple more high-pitched squeaks emerged from one of the boys and into the atmosphere.  Mel let out a derisive snort.

“Want a hit of pot?” she asked, as she retrieved a doobie and a pack of matches from her duffle.  “It’ll probably help your stomach.”

“Sure,” responded Katie, taking the stuff.  She lit up, exhaled, and gazed up at the ceiling of the tent.  “You know, I wish I could fart out all my troubles,” she stated nonchalantly.  She passed over the joint.

“Yeah, don’t we all,” said Mel, holding in her inhale of pot.

Another few squeaky farts rang out, at which Mel inevitably chortled.

“That can’t be Franky,” Katie muttered under her breath.

“Oh no?” probed Mel, as she stashed the rest of the weed.  “Why?  Because Franky’s too much of a stone fox to be able to lay a gasser that whimpy?”

“NO!” Katie defended, sitting up.

“Woah!  The puke monster rises!” teased Mel.

“Shut up, goon!  I’m just starting to feel a little bit better.”

“Oh, phew!  I was afraid I’d have to sleep outside if you started blasting like Franky.”  Katie didn’t laugh like she knew Mel expected.

“You know that reminds me,” Mel said, tentatively.  “Is there, like, something going on between you two?”  Katie felt herself blush, but figured she could just pass it off as another side effect of the beans.

“Between who?” she asked, hoping Mel couldn’t detect that she totally knew.  This weekend camping trip to Utah’s Zion National Park was the first time Katie was chilling with Mel’s crew for an extended period of time.  Mel was in her Chemistry class at Valley High School in Las Vegas and was known as the “I don’t give a shit” girl of the eleventh grade.  Mel hung out with the pothead boys, Brad and Franky, known as “the PJs,” an abbreviation that was rumored to have evolved from “Passers of the Joint.”  A raunchier rumor was that it stood for the “Pussy Jumpers.”  These were cats who the popular girls refused to associate with but all secretly thought were way attractive.  And they were.  They didn’t wear cool threads or have big muscles like the jocks, but the PJs had amazing shaggy blonde hair and the most naturally chiseled jaws you’d ever find on a couple of seventeen-year-olds.  See, their reputation for being Stonehenges (hence “Passers of the Joint”) was proven and widely accepted; but what people couldn’t prove yet still believed was their reputation for regularly doing the Horizontal Tango with all the freshman girls at Southern Nevada Community College (hence “Pussy Jumpers”).  This made the PJs sort of exotic, even if they were eleventh grade rejects; because, unlike the jocks, who just passed around the same cheerleaders, Brad and Franky “did it” with a different college girl every other day.  Kids who paid any attention guessed that this particular piece of hearsay stemmed from how the PJs lived on the outskirts of the school district (which was right next to the community college), didn’t have too many friends at Valley High, and never denied the rumors.  Katie, like most, believed them.  She had just started hanging out with Mel and the PJs this year.  Katie was a fallen popular chick of sorts: a bored cheerleader, who decided she didn’t want to be doomed to spending the rest of high school getting felt up by some horny wide receiver, or god forbid, a linebacker.  Ever since turning sixteen, all her cheerleader friends had started losing their virginities left and right to jocks behind bleachers or in parking lots.  Katie knew if she didn’t make a change, she’d be next.  Chilling with the popular crowd had never been much fun anyway.  So, she figured now was a better time than ever to socially experiment.  Mel and the PJs seemed like the perfect crowd to start with, because all you have to do to get along with stoners is to be nice to them and smoke pot.  Katie could do that. 

Plus, she had a two-year long, top-secret crush on Franky.  They had P.E. together.  He always picked her first when he was team captain for Flag Football, even though she sucked.  And before they ever started hanging out, he’d smile at her whenever he saw her around school.  Katie could get with almost any footballer at Valley High, but for some reason, she wasn’t interested in giving emotionless hand jobs at the drive-in or dating some brainless jerk simply so she could wear his varsity jacket and pretend she was in love.  Although it wasn’t much, Franky made Katie’s knees go week.  No other guy did that.  But she knew such an edgy, experienced guy wouldn’t want her.  She never told Mel about it.  She didn’t want her new friend to think that Franky was the only reason she started hanging out with their crew.

“Between who?” Katie repeated.  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Between you and that fart factory, Franky.  For your sake, I hope the answer is hell no,” joked Mel.  Katie didn’t respond.  “Earth to Katie!”  Mel formed the shape of a megaphone with her hands.  “Am I gonna have to force feed you another can of beans to get an answer!”

“Oh, take a chill pill,” Katie said dismissively.  “Franky would never go for me anyway.”  Katie saw Mel’s face light up with curiosity.

“What makes you say that?” Mel offered, spinning around so that she was now lying on her stomach, facing Katie.

“Oh, come on, do we have to talk about this?”

“No, we don’t have to.”  Katie sensed the reverse psychology, which was actually comforting.  She figured if Mel already had a hunch and wasn’t pissed off, then she could dish a little.  Katie slid out of the sleeping bag and readjusted her posture.

“Okay, I sort of like Franky,” Katie admitted quietly.  “Like, like like.  But it’s not a big deal.”  She waited semi-tensely for a reaction.

“Yeah,” Mel responded casually.  “And?”  Her unsurprised attitude made Katie relieved, but not exactly relaxed enough to spill her guts.  Her crush was, after all, supposed to be top-secret.

“And…” Katie began.  “And that’s it.  I know he doesn’t like me back.  It’s not a big deal.”

“How do you know?” 

Katie started sweating.  Between the blushing and perspiration, she didn’t know how far she could take blaming the beans.

“Um, I just, well,” Katie searched for words that would drop the conversation but still somewhat tell the truth.  “I mean, why would he?” she chose to say.  “Why would Franky, the PJ, the bad boy, like me?  He has all of Southern Nevada at his beck and call.”  She thought that would clear things up.

“Southern Nevada Community College?” asked Mel.

“Yeah, everyone knows.  Brad and Franky get all the freshman chicks there.  I mean, no wonder they’re so nice and relaxed all the time.  They do it more than anyone at Valley!”  Katie laughed to break her own tension and hopefully kill the topic.  She stared down at her pink-polished toenails.

“So, the reason you think Franky doesn’t like you is all about sex, huh?” Mel posed.  Katie decided this conversation was not going to end any time soon.  She surrendered.

“Well, yeah,” she responded.  “That’s all guys care about, so yeah.”

“And, you don’t think you’re good or something?” 

Katie didn’t predict this conversation was going to happen with her new friend so soon.  She and her old cheerleader gal pals talked about sex, but the conversations mostly consisted of them whispering about in what strange places they did it, and how it didn’t feel that good but they were sure it’d get better soon, and how excited they were to go shopping for lingerie now that they had somebody to see it.  Katie would sit there and listen, occasionally asking a question, but mostly just dreading that her future sex life would be as bleak and meaningless as theirs.  Listening to her friends’ stories also enhanced the complete self-loathing she felt from being too chicken to simply get it over with herself—that being, her first time.  Katie actually hated the phrase, “first time.”  She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she felt awkward, icky vibes about it.  You never heard dudes talk about their “first time.”  She didn’t want it to be any more embarrassing or taboo for her than it seemed to be for guys; because, although she didn’t want to have sex in any of the ways her peers had so far, she also didn’t want to be a virgin.  It was her life’s greatest daily dilemma.  Well, that and what color toenail polish to use.

“I,” Katie murmured.  “I’ve actually never had sex.”  Katie prayed Mel wouldn’t make a huge scene about it.  The fact itself was already humiliating enough.

“Really?  I thought all you cheerleaders mated like rabbits.” 

Mel and Katie shared a laugh.

“Well, the rest of them do,” Katie revealed, happy to be talking about someone other than herself.  She knew Mel would love the opportunity to get the skinny on the popular crowd.  Anyone who wasn’t a part of it would, even the supposed “I don’t give a shit” girl. 

“Yeah, Pete Welsh and Cindy Christianson do it every day after school in the woods behind the softball field.  And Mark Phelps sometimes goes over to Cindy’s house, and does it with her right afterwards!”

“Oh, sick!” Mel exclaimed, delighted.

“Yeah they all do it with one another.  Pete and Cindy, Mark and Cindy, Don and Cindy, Steve-O and Carol (they’re dating), Steve-O and Melanie (Carol doesn’t know; it’s a huge scandal), let me see… Josh and Melanie, Josh and Rita, Josh and Susan, Josh and Kim… Josh and pretty much everyone besides Cindy, because they’re like, 3^rd cousins or something.”  Katie was really enjoying airing out all the dirty laundry of her former half-friends.  Mel was eating it up.

“Wowzzers,” Mel reacted, shaking her head.  “So, it’s true; all of those kids really are as slutty as people say.”

“Pretty much,” answered Katie, embarrassed on the popular crowd’s behalf.  “Except the stories all sound horrible!  Awkward body parts in the wrong places, bizarre positions they read about in their parents’ old coma sutra books and attempt to do; I remember Carol telling me about how when she and Steve-O tried to get it on for the first time, it was in the dark in the back of his dad’s station wagon, and he actually ended up doing it with her knee.  Like, apparently her knee was bent, and he couldn’t see, so he accidentally stuck it right between her calf and her thigh and just started going for it.”  Mel managed a smile as she shuttered in horror.  “I know,” said Katie, laughing.  “How do you not regret such a terrible experience?  That is the type of thing I’m desperately trying to avoid.”  Katie let out a breath that sounded like a mix between a chuckle and a disheartened sigh.

“You know, it doesn’t have to be like that,” Mel suggested, after a beat.  “I lost my virginity when I was camping in Colorado last summer.”  Katie perked up.  She had never heard Mel divulge anything really personal before.  “It was with the son of a family friend,” she continued.  “A guy named Billy.  We were friends as kids, but I hadn’t seen him in a long time, because his family moved across town.  Well, out of the blue, he invited me out to Colorado for a week to go camping with him and some other kids I used to know.  Anyway, he’s the nicest guy and had gotten so hot since the last time I’d seen him.  In kind of a Warren Beatty type of way, you know, actually handsome.  So, one night we were all telling ghost stories around the campfire (NO beans were involved, thank god), and Billy asked if I wanted to take a walk.  And I said sure.  So we got to talking, and he ended up telling me he’d liked me when we were younger but was always afraid to tell me.  God, he just looked like such a fox that night.  So, after walking around and talking for a while, we snuck back to his tent.  And, we did it.  No, I wasn’t in love with him, and no, it didn’t feel one hundred percent incredible, like I was gonna lift up into the heavens or something; but it was nice.  And he was nice.  And I don’t regret it at all.”

Katie processed the story for a minute.  She found it ironic how Mel, a girl who everyone in school thought had absolutely nothing to offer, was doling out such mature, no-nonsense advice about a topic she could have easily mocked.

“And if you want to know the truth,” Mel continued.  “I have known those PJs since before either one of them ever put a joint to their mouth, and I will tell you for certain, as a secret between you and me, that their nickname comes from nowhere but their smoking habits.”  Mel raised her eyebrows at Katie, making sure she understood.

“Wait a second,” Katie said, abruptly.  “Franky doesn’t go around laying tons of community college girls?”  Mel shook her head.

“Absolutely not,” she replied.  “It’s a hilarious rumor, though, and they both obviously love it.  That’s why they don’t deny it to anyone.  They know no one at Valley is gonna do it with them, so why not let all those kids think they’re getting it from somewhere better?”  Mel chuckled.

“Oh my god,” Katie gasped.  She couldn’t believe Franky’s sex god status was a total lie.  “So, who started that rumor in the first place?”

“No idea,” shrugged Mel.  “Where do any of them start?  Do you know how many rumors are circulating about you?  I mean, just the other week, I heard you were involved in a threesome after the Sadie Hawkins dance with Josh Tanner and Susan whats-her-face.”

“Susan Powell?!” Katie exclaimed.  “Me?  With Josh Tanner and Susan Powell?”  Katie couldn’t believe there were rumors about her going around at Valley that she didn’t even know about.  But she sort of had to smile to herself at the prospect of people thinking she was wild enough to be involved in a threesome.

Mel reached back over to her duffle to grab the joint. 

“Yeah, people who believe that BS are such suckers,” she asserted, as she lit up once again.  Katie was going to respond, when all the sudden one of what Mel described as Brad’s “long, gnarly explosions” reverberated through the campgrounds.

“God,” Katie said.  “At this point, they have to be doing it on purpose, just to mess with us.  They’re probably bothering other people trying to sleep out here!”  Mel was too zoned out on her weed to say anything.  “Well,” Katie said, almost to herself.  “I’m going to go over there and see what in the world is going on.  I’m gonna take the lantern.  Is that okay?”  Mel nodded sluggishly and rolled over on her side.  Katie guessed she was out for the night.  She grabbed the lantern and headed out of the tent.

“What the hell are you boys doing?” Katie called out, as she unzipped the PJs’ tent.  “Oh man!  That smell!”

“You unleashed the stench!” Brad whined, as he gripped his stomach and let out a squeaky fart.

“You mean all that was coming from you, Brad?” asked Katie, stunned.

“Yes it was,” answered Franky, clipping his nose shut with his thumb and forefinger.  “I just had a little stomach ache, but this cat seems to be possessed!” 

Katie threw her head back and laughed.

“I had a stomach ache too,” she said.  “But I’m better now.  Are you?”

“Yeah, I had some pot.  I’m better.”

“Right on.” 

Katie and Franky’s eyes met silently for a minute until Franky finally said, “Do you, uh, wanna go for a walk with me?  I should probably get out of this toxic waste bin of a tent.  This place needs to be fumigated.”  Katie smiled.

“Yeah, I do.”

Franky got out of the tent and stood up next to Katie.  His hair looked particularly shaggy and blonde by the light of the lantern.  He looked at Katie and smiled sweetly like he always did in the hallway at school.

“I’m really glad we’re getting to spend time together,” he told her.  Katie detected a level of nervousness in his voice that she’d never noticed before. 

“Me too,” she said, and took his hand.  It was sweaty.  Katie tried to convince herself it was from his being nervous around her, and not some gross and mysterious liquid from Brad.  She laughed at the thought.

“What?!” Franky asked, grinning.

“Oh, nothing, just Brad, that maniac,” Katie replied. 

Hand and hand, the virgin Stonehenge and the virgin Cheerleader rustled through the leaves in the night.