The sound of the river fills the silence. I still can’t believe he’s here. He’s real.
“Did you catch that deer?” I ask at the same time Bo asks “Did you finish Walden?” We both laugh. I say “No,” the same moment he says “Yes.”
“You know, if we both keep talking at the same time, our conversations will take half as long,” I remark.
He thinks for a moment. “I don’t want our conversations to take half as long,” he replies. “Maybe instead we can both say twice as much.”
I smile at him because while that might have sounded like a pickup line from a different guy, from him it’s genuine. Because he’s genuine, I realize. He’s a real person. I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve met one of those. Another long silence. I could stay like this with him all day, comfortably quiet as I watch the filtered light morph across his face, but he looks anxious. Embarrassed, even, so I say the first thing that pops into my head.
“Why do you hate Thoreau?”
He smiles slowly. “I’ll get you started on some John Stuart Mill. We’ll go from there.”
“Really?” I say, laughing. “That sounds serious. What are you? Some sort of wild boy philosopher?” It sounds silly coming out of my mouth, but that’s how I picture him.
He shakes his head. “My mom is the philosopher. Or she was a professor of philosophy. I just read what she tells me to read.”
“She was?” I ask, emphasizing the past tense as delicately as I can.
“Oh, she’s alive,” he replies. “She just doesn’t teach any more, although sometimes she still writes for some political journals. She loves to write.” He looks down at my notebook. “Like you.”
“No,” I say, waving a dismissive hand at my long-neglected notebook. Why do I even carry that thing around anymore? “I’m not a writer.”
He gives me a searching look. “Then why do you spend so much time out here alone?”
“I’m not alone, am I?” I say, gesturing to him. He laughs with me. He’s got a great laugh.
“You’re making this easier than I thought you would,” he says. And then he blushes. “I mean, you’re nice.” He looks like he could kick himself. “No—nice isn’t what I meant.” He realizes he just implied that he’d assumed I wasn’t nice, and he looks like he wants to turn inside out with shame.
“It’s okay. This should have been much weirder than it’s turning out to be,” I say. I gesture to my stuff again. “I mean, I’m the one who sat in the middle of a forest for the better part of a week just in case you showed up.” Now I want to kick myself. “Just forget I said that.”
“Only if you’ll forget I was watching you the whole time,” he admits sheepishly.
I nod and laugh nervously. What is wrong with me? Guys never make me nervous. “So we’re both creepy,” I say.
He shakes himself and takes a step back. “It’s getting late. You’ve usually left by now. And—listen.” He looks tortured again. “This is a national forest, and my family is out here illegally.”
“I haven’t told anyone about you,” I say immediately. “And I won’t.”
“Thanks,” he says. And then he’s gone. A few rustling ferns and—poof.
I can’t believe it. “Bo!” I shout.
I see his head peek out from the underbrush. “Yeah?” he says, sounding almost hopeful.
“Meet me here tomorrow,” I say.
He smiles and does the poof thing again.
• • •
I’ve got Grandma on the ropes.
“Give me all your sevens,” she says, like this is some kind of holdup.
“Go. Fish.”
I get up and dance. Grandma has lost. I am not a graceful winner. Not since this is the first game of Go Fish I’ve ever won off that conniving old cheat.
“I won! In your face with a can of mace,” I chant.
I am five years old. I am taunting an old woman. I can’t sink any lower.
“Hi!” a cheerful voice calls from the front of the house. “It’s Mila and Aura-Blue!”
“Come on in!” Grandpa calls back.
I’m still dancing around Grandma as they enter. “How lovely to see you girls,” Grandma says as she catches me and pulls me down next to her on the settee. “You owe me one dollar,” I remind Grandma. I look at Mila and Aura-Blue. “What can the reigning queen of Go Fish do for her subjects?”
“We wanted to know if you, um…had a job?” Aura-Blue says haltingly.
Mila’s lips purse with displeasure at Aura-Blue’s lackluster opening pitch.
“Summer kids don’t apply for jobs while we’re in town because that could potentially take money away from people who live here and need the income,” Mila explains.
“People like me,” Aura-Blue adds without a hint of embarrassment. She’s working class, but obviously secure enough in herself to know she’s got way more to offer than a trust fund. I smile with her. I could really get to like this girl.
“But it gets boring just hanging out for three months, right?” Mila continues.
Um, sure? I nod for her to continue.
“So instead, some of you summer kids volunteer a few days a week at the women’s shelter the next town over in Longridge,” Aura-Blue says. “I’m doing it this year, too, for college credit, and we thought you might like to come with us.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” Grandpa exclaims.
“Girls, it is just so special that you do that,” enthuses Grandma.
I give one mirthless laugh at the irony of being asked to volunteer.
“I’d love to,” I say firmly. There’s no making up for what I’ve done. I’m not stupid enough to think I’ll ever find redemption. But still, it’s better to do something positive than nothing at all. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”
“Excellent,” Mila says as her face lights up. “I knew you’d be into this. You’ve probably done a lot of volunteer work in New York.”
I shrug and look away. “Some,” I say. “Not nearly as much as I should have.”
• • •
“We can’t go,” Jinka said. “There’s no way we can blow off my mom.”
Scarlet looked at me. Egging me on. She rolled over on my bed and snapped her gum pointedly.