Gets quiet for a couple minutes after that. I know why I get quiet. I can’t help but think about the wiry chocolate boy with girl’s eyelashes and giant eyes like a li’l baby deer’s who’s sittin’ just to my right and who keeps slidin’ closer to me. Maybe everyone has their own version of what I got goin’ on in my head in theirs. I look around our little circle and catch Leon starin’ at me. He clears his throat and looks away. Then I notice Bernadette looking at Clay like he’s a cool glass a water and she’s stranded in the Mojave. For the tiniest second, I think about twistin’ her head right off her neck, but I glance at Clay, and I don’t think he’s even noticed. If he did, I don’t think he cares. He ain’t lookin’ at nobody but me.
Anne lights a cigarette and inhales. I try to catch her eye, but she got one a them thousand-yard stares right now. I wonder if she’s gettin’ sick of us. Ready to put an end to the festivities.
“Y’all wanna hear the thing or not?” she asks.
“Yeah!” I pipe up first, and then the others do too. I don’t want her to think we totally forgot what we’re here to celebrate.
She takes another drag off her cig, reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a folded piece of paper, from which she reads aloud.
“ ‘The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.’ ”
When she finishes, no one knows what to do at first. Clay looks at me like, Should we clap? Real quick I grab a cup of spiked punch, and I hold it up high.
“Here’s to absolute equality of rights,” I say. And then I add, “When that finally happens!” I was careful to say “when” and not “if.” In response, there’s a chorus of amens, hear hears, and yeses. Anne Marie smiles at me, and I can tell she’s already feelin’ better.
* * *
Bernadette gets loud again, talkin’ about this movie she saw, recountin’ every detail. Somethin’ about a man so afraid of bein’ buried alive that he opens his father’s tomb and has a heart attack right there cuz the tomb’s empty. I don’t care for horror flicks. They don’t get anything right.
I yawn, for the first time thinking about my early morning, when Clay gives my pinky a tug. I turn to him, and he tilts his head toward the road.
“This was so much fun,” I say to Anne Marie, interrupting Bernadette’s endless movie report, “but I gotta get up early.”
“Yeah, me too,” Clay says, standing up behind me.
“It ain’t that late yet,” Leon protests.
“Late enough,” Clay says with a smile. “I’ll walk Evalene home.”
“Bye, y’all,” I say, but they’re already talkin’ again. Anne Marie waves. Sad eyes again. I’ll call her later to make sure she’s all right.
Clay and I walk, his fingers interlaced with mine, and instead of heading to the main road, he gently points us toward the woods. Well, he stops and stares in the direction of the woods, and I lead us that way.
“How many days a week you work?” he asks as it gets harder and harder to see each other, the trees and their shadows surrounding us.
I sigh. Just thinking about work makes me wanna curl up and hide somewhere. “Five usually. Sometimes six.”
“Damn. That’s a lotta time to be around that brat.”
I laugh. “How you know she’s a brat?”
“If she was an angel, I’m sure your boss lady would wanna spend more time with her herself,” he says. And that is a real good point. I’d never thought of it like that before.
“You’re right. She’s a terror.”
“It’s too bad.”
“Who you tellin’?”
“No,” he says, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me to him, “I mean about your schedule. I was hopin’ to see a whole lot more a you this summer.”
I stay calm and try not to tremble. But this is it, right? It has to be. All the time I’ve spent wonderin’ if I’ve been imagining things, wishful thinking and all that, he has never been this overt. I don’t think I have to wonder anymore. Clay likes me. He likes me. I look down so he can’t see the size of my grin. But I can’t get too carried away. Nothing’s official yet.
“I don’t see why you can’t,” I say.
“When?”
“You work too. We’ll just have to be… creative.”
“Oh, is that all?” he asks, eyes sparkling with mischief. “I can be creative.”
“Really?”
“Evvie girl, you ain’t seen creative yet,” he jokes, and I laugh, moving in even closer. He leans down so our foreheads touch. I look into his eyes. I love those big eyes of his. If I had to stare at ’em all day long, it wouldn’t be long enough for me.
But now… He ain’t lookin’ in my eyes now. He’s lookin’ down at my lips.
“You have no idea, do you?”
“Idea of what?” I ask him.
He chuckles and blinks, and his eyelashes brush against my skin. He swallows.
“You’re like nobody else,” he whispers.
It’s slow, but he leans down the rest of the way, following what his eyes desire, and kisses me, and I think my body is finna melt into a pool a heat and feelin’ and taste. I kiss back, and we kiss so hard and for so long, my lips start to get tingly, and I don’t mind a bit. His mouth finds my earlobes, my neck, my collarbone.
“Oh, Evvie,” he breathes.
And the unwelcome thought of Mama pops into my head outta nowhere. She would be livid if she knew what her baby girl was doin’ right this very minute. I have a feelin’ if anyone’s gonna put on the brakes, it’ll have to be me. I know that we shouldn’t be doin’ this so soon, but I can’t stop us. So Clay does.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
He still has his arms around me, his hands delicately caressing my back, but he’s pulled back. He’s put air between us, and I don’t want air between us.
“Evvie,” he starts, but he doesn’t say anything else.
“What is it? Is it me?” With horror, I wonder if my roll-on has worn off. I told Mama not to get the cheap one!
“No! God no. I just…” He hesitates again. “I just don’t want to do… anything until you’re ready. Ya know?”
I take a breath. “Uh-huh.”
Though we can’t see each other too clearly in the dark, we keep on starin’ in each other’s eyes, waitin’. I know what we’re waitin’ for, and I kinda can’t believe we’re here already, but here we are. Kissin’ just ain’t enough. When I woke up this morning, I did not expect to be here. With him holding me tight and close like I’m a diamond. He’s probably right. Why rush? It’s risky, we could get caught, and I can’t even think about how mortifying that would be. Worse yet… would he resent me later? If he thinks I’m easy?