Our Little Secret Read online

  “Not so bad. Here, try one. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  We stared at each other as we chewed.

  “They taste like the stuff they put on your tongue in church,” I said.

  “They taste like dusty cow patties.”

  “How many of those have you eaten before?”

  “How often do you go to church?”

  We sniggered and HP took my hand.

  “Let’s hold tight,” he said, and in that moment we left everyone at the party behind and it became him and me and the night ahead.

  * * *

  I’m sorry to go on about recreational drugs in a police station, Detective Novak; I know that’s inappropriate. But this is about me and HP. This is our story, even if it has taken enough twists that I’m telling it in here. There’s a unique closeness that comes from two friends doing drugs like that together, and I don’t care if that’s illegal. HP and I were already close—always had been—but with our minds adjusted we clung to each other as if we were visitors on this planet and mutually surprised by it.

  Ezra had said once that taking mushrooms was like dipping the sponge of your brain into more water, a metaphor I thought was dumb until I knew what he meant. Every day the world dances around you, a semaphore sending signals, offering beauty, waiting to be noticed, but your undistorted brain can’t process the gifts and sends them back unopened. There’s a whole other dimension on offer every minute, and on drugs your head tilts and shows you what’s out there. I haven’t done mushrooms since then and probably won’t ever again; I had my night. What’s the point of doing something twice when it’s been done perfectly the first time? It’s the same reason I won’t fall in love now.

  We spent a lot of that night up on a tree platform, looking down as people milled on the path below us while music’s bass beat pulsed inside my skin. HP’s face seemed mottled in blue-green algae, and I was sure the platform was a raft, adrift on a gentle sea. Time blurred unhelpfully and neither of us had a watch. As night pushed further toward morning, the lantern lights in all the trees fizzed and faded like a colony of eyes shutting.

  I turned to HP. “I think I can climb down the rope now.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and felt it tickle my earlobes.

  “Let’s try. Wow, your eyes are amazing. They’re slate gray. And it’s, like, morning and I’m not even hungry. What’s up with that?”

  HP reached forward and grabbed the top of the rope ladder. Gingerly he stretched down, ramming his sneaker onto a foothold. Then he waited for me, guiding my skate shoe until it felt safe. The pine needles were spongy under our feet as we walked out of the woods past clusters of grads smoking joints, their legs plaited together, girls’ heads on boys’ shoulders.

  The fire pit smoked alone, beer cans littering the circle. We walked beyond it holding hands. At the top of the smooth curve of hill was a patch of grass where we threw ourselves onto our knees.

  “Tell me something real,” I said.

  HP rubbed his jaw, which glinted golden with stubble. “Want to know my first name?” He paused. “H is for Hamish. My grandfather’s a Scot.”

  “Hamish Parker.” I grinned, lying flat on my back in the grass. “I can’t believe it took you so long to tell me.”

  “Well, you earned it.” He settled beside me and turned his head, squinting. “Although you could have asked the school secretary. I’m pretty sure it’s in all the records.”

  We laughed. After a pause I spoke again.

  “What was your brother’s name?”

  HP closed his eyes. “Thomson. He was blonder than me and funner.”

  It was all he’d say.

  * * *

  We lay still on the steepness of the slope, a couple in a luge event, rigid and straight-armed, hurtling somewhere unknown. He fell asleep almost immediately, snoring quietly with his hands resting on his chest. His long eyelashes fluttered with dreams. Awake alone, I glanced up at the scuffed sky. It’s always been companionable to me—I like its unending stretch, and the notion that wherever you go it’s with you. My brain flexed and in a melt of cheekbones and lips, the clouds morphed into a kind, wizened old man with a face that was benevolent and warm. After that every cloud that rolled by became an exercise in changing clouds into figures—monks, wizards … and monsters. I learned, right there in the grass, that what you see each day is entirely your own invention. I found out that night that I could alter what’s in front of me—I could literally write the sky.

  When I woke it was to warm sunshine. HP was sitting up, bare-chested with his hoodie knotted around his waist. His back muscles tightened and relaxed as he plucked at strands of grass.

  “Hey,” I croaked. He turned, the side of his mouth breaking into a grin.

  “How d’you feel? A little less than average?” He lay down on his side, his head resting on his hand while he sucked a piece of grass. His pectoral muscle was heavy and grooved.

  “I’m too hot.” I lurched and sat up to pull off my white T-shirt. Underneath I wore a small tank top. The morning air felt good on my shoulders. “Where is everyone?” I turned to catch HP staring at me.

  He cleared his throat and pointed back down toward the fire pit, where people were beginning to wander around. Someone had started a fresh fire, and we could hear it snapping as the flames licked at the new wood.

  “Here, I got you this.”

  He passed me a bottle of cold water. I cracked the cap, drinking in the clean coolness like a shipwreck survivor.

  “Where did you find these?”

  “By Ez’s truck. He left a cooler there all night. I’ve been up for about an hour.”

  He ran his grass strand down the skin of my shoulder and I wriggled, batting at him with a limp palm.

  “Guess where my girlfriend slept last night. I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.” He flung the grass strand into the field while I looked at him carefully.

  “Does it matter?”

  He let out one bark of a laugh. “No; but I might kick the shit out of Ezra on principle.”

  I used my hand like a visor and peered down the hill. There was Lacy on Ezra’s lap, wearing his varsity jacket. Her hair looked like she’d run it through a hedge.

  “Maybe he just wants the things you have. Or maybe she does.”

  His brow had a tiny V in the center, his trademark stamp of deep thought. “At least you had the sense to not make out with him.”

  “I told you. There’s no point kissing the wrong boy.”

  I’m certain there was a beat while we stared at each other, while we wondered if we were thinking the same thing. A second. A half second. Was it his hand or mine that moved first? All I remember clearly is that the world suddenly felt fluid. In one flow of motion, his hand was behind my neck and I rolled onto the skin of his chest. Our heat-seeking mouths felt warm on the inside, our tongues sliding and smooth. My whole body pulsed in ways I hadn’t known before. The more I kissed him, the more I wanted. I tasted his neck; I inhaled the smell of him, his beach-smoked oak. The buttons of our jeans snagged as we pressed together.

  “We have to go somewhere,” he gasped.

  I was struck dumb by an ache to have his mouth back.

  “Ezra’s truck,” I suggested. It stood parked just twenty feet away with the tailgate open, the nose facing down the hill so the back end was entirely hidden. We ran there, half crouching as if under fire. HP hauled me up into the truck bed and unrolled his man blanket for us to lie on. He climbed on top of me, although he held back some of his weight because I could feel his triceps muscles tense when my fingers brushed them. We slowed down.

  “Do you feel weird?” he asked, so close that I felt the words on my face.

  “No. Do you think I do?”

  He shook his head, earnest, the fluff at his crown sticking up. I arched up for him, pulling him onto me. As the world blurred around us, dreamlike, I couldn’t believe we were really doing this. Confidence beat from me: I know it was me who
undid the first pant fly, who slid fingers under his waistband. My hands moved on him as if they’d already lived this scene, already knew what happened next.

  He moaned and twisted, whispered, “Are you sure you haven’t been practicing?”

  And we smile-kissed, free with the sky looking down on us, surprised by the rightness we’d discovered.

  That early morning with HP was an on switch I never thought we’d flick. Once we’d found it, the light fell differently on us. I’d never been naked before—not like that. Suffice to say I didn’t know I had those instincts until I found them with him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As I speak, all these memories flood me and I’m back in the past, alive there, with all the light the same. I go quiet for long stretches, following pathways of old thoughts right to their very end, enjoying the cadence of voices I recognize. So many perfect days are stored in my head. Novak brings me back if I take too long, and I try to let him see the moment I’ve just relived. I’m not sure if I can, though—not to any real depth. It’s one of life’s great sadnesses, surely, the inability to properly convey. But I’m trying.

  * * *

  I woke up in Ezra’s truck, pulling the fleece of the blanket around my ribs as I peeped over the rim of the truck bed. There were my classmates packing up camp, stamping out the fire, gathering up chip bags—I don’t know how long we’d slept but the sun was high in the sky and Ezra was starting the climb up the hill toward us.

  “HP!” I shook his shoulder, rocking him out of the depths of sleep. “We have to get dressed!” I reached for my clothes, scrunched in a pile beside him.

  “Hi.” He pulled me against him and nuzzled into my neck.

  “They’re walking right up the hill.”

  He stretched and yawned, his mouth cavernous.

  “Get clothes on!” I squeaked, trying to bat his hands away as I fastened my bra.

  “You look good when you’re freaking out. Your eyes get even bigger.” He pulled on his pants and sat up. “Listen. Slow down a second. I just want to say something.” I let him pull me over toward him and when he kissed me we were hungry again in a surge, our hands on each other’s faces.

  It was Ezra who separated us. He clanked a cooler into the truck and hopped up on the tailgate, his back to us.

  “Well, well, well.” Ezra lit a cigarette and turned to face us. “Look who’s graduated.” He picked up my tank top and twirled it on his forefinger. I grabbed it. “You better get shoes on, bro. Your girlfriend’s ten steps away.”

  HP said nothing but leapt over the side of the truck and sauntered down to the lake as Lacy arrived at the tailgate in Ezra’s grad jacket.

  “Where did he go?” she asked, watching me roll up his man blanket.

  “HP, HP, HP.” Ezra blew smoke rings and pinched a strand of tobacco from between his front teeth as Lacy took off down the hill again. “We all need HP.”

  He looked startled when I grabbed his cigarette and took a drag. “Since when do you smoke?”

  “You don’t know me like you think you do, Ez.” I inhaled deeply, coughing while trying to seem like I’d done it before. “And FYI, HP’s gonna kick your ass.”

  “Oh, get real. As if he’s into Lacy.” He grabbed the cigarette back. “Lacy’s gonna kick your ass.”

  We glanced down the hill to see that Lacy had caught up to HP by the fire pit. He put his hands on his hips as he stood listening to her. She tried to touch his bare shoulder but of course he stepped back. I watched as he zipped up Ezra’s grad jacket for her before walking back toward us.

  “It’s like a line dance where the partners switch,” Ezra said. “We’ve all gone do-si-do.”

  We drove back to town, our formation along the front seat the same: I was still jammed up against Lacy and could feel the hate burning out of her toward the side of my head. I didn’t look at her. The boys must have sorted out their differences with a few loose sentences while they packed up the truck; they both shouted song lyrics as we drove through town.

  When Ezra parked outside my house, I got out to grab my bag from the back. Through the study window, I could see Dad slowly pacing the room as he read a piece of paper in his hands.

  “See you guys soon,” I said. “Thanks for the ride, Ez.”

  “Later.” HP winked at me.

  As I walked up the steps of the front porch, Dad emerged with a letter, which he waved so eagerly his hair bobbed. I walked right past him and into the house. Mom was doing sudoku on the couch, rubbing out a number she’d gotten wrong. I swear she bought her way into Yale. As I walked into the living room, she looked up with the eyes of someone expecting a wedding announcement.

  “So? How did it go? Sweetheart, tell me everything.”

  She patted the cushion next to hers, but instead I dropped my bag on the floor and trudged straight to the fridge.

  “Was it wonderful? Did HP look after you?”

  I drank milk straight from the carton but she was too enraptured to notice.

  “I remember my high school graduation weekend. I danced all night with Kenny Calahan and, darling, I can tell you, he was no slouch. He drove me home in his father’s BMW. It purred like a cat. I love a man in a Beamer.”

  “Is that why you chose Dad?” I snorted, looking around to see where he’d gone. He must have retreated back to his study.

  “I didn’t meet Dad until I was twenty-one! We were in Twelfth Night together at college; he was Malvolio, which was unattractive, but he charmed me at the cast party. I’ve told you this story before.”

  “I wasn’t listening.”

  She shut her sudoku book and used it to fan her regal face. “These number puzzles are meant to be the easy level. The hard ones must be an entrance exam for NASA.” Her laugh was too shrill. She got up and joined me in the kitchen, leaning in her swirly chiffon blouse against the countertop. “Angela, did you kiss a boy?”

  I jumped at the question. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Oh, I know a thing or two about my daughter.” She twirled the yellow tie of her blouse between long, painted fingernails. “Look at your glow! You did kiss a boy, although why one would choose you with your hair a mess is beyond me. Was it HP? Oh, Angela, you have no idea how good you’ve got it.” She sighed moonily. “There’s nothing better than fresh love, and that boy’s a diamond in a town of rough. Please tell me it was HP.”

  I put the milk back in the fridge and closed the door. “I’ve been thinking. I don’t want to go away to college. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous.” Her voice dropped low and husky.

  “It’s what Dad wants. Nobody’s asked me.” I smeared milk off my top lip with the back of my hand while she took a deep breath.

  “Did you take chemical drugs? You look peaked. You’ll feel differently when you’ve had a hot shower and some fresh fruit. Your father has very exciting news for you. Where is he? He’s been pacing the study all morning like a Bengal tiger. It’s a relief you’re home.”

  “Jesus, Mom. Can you not hear anything I’m saying?”

  She swept back to the couch and arranged her skirt around her knees. “Let’s not talk about it now, sweetheart. Not when your tone is this acidic.”

  “Let’s not talk about what?” asked Dad as he shuffled into the living room. He stood behind the couch with his hands on his hips and his pelvis arched forward. The letter he’d waved at me at the front door was now rolled up like a scroll, pressed tight against his hip bone.

  “David, where have you been?”

  “I had to go and fetch the envelope. Look at it! It’s gold-crested.” He rocked up to his tiptoes and back down again.

  “I think now’s not the time. No, David, she’s addled and needs sleep. Look at her skin tone. I say we wait on the good news.” Mom leafed through the pages of her book.

  “Oh,” said Dad. He scratched the back of his neck. “What did you learn at camp? I hope HP didn’t let me down.”

  “They’ve h
ad an adventure,” smiled Mom, nibbling the end of her sudoku pencil, “but she’s being coy and well-mannered about it. A lady never kisses and tells.”

  Dad frowned. “Angela, we need to have a team talk about your future.” He raised the rolled scroll of letter as if it were a trumpet through which he might bugle his triumph. “I have Oxford developments to report.” He took a step closer to the breakfast bar. “Angela, close the fridge and look at me. My darling, I know you’re tired but we’ve gotten you into the University of Oxford, England! It’s really happening! You’re going to the best school in the world.” He covered his lips with the fingertips of one hand and waited for me to celebrate.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His hesitation was momentary, like perhaps he hadn’t been speaking English properly. “Reggie McIntosh has secured a freshman year of study for you to read classics, based on what he’s calling a ‘superior academic transcript.’ You’ll be attached to Hertford College—they’ve also accepted you. Well done!”

  I grimaced. Why hadn’t I written worse papers through twelfth grade?

  “Angela, it’s the kind of launchpad we could only have dreamed of. The possibilities coming out of this are endl—”

  “I didn’t dream of it. It’s not my dream.” In my head all I could see was HP, his face above mine in Ezra’s truck.

  Over on the sofa, my mother clamped her hands between her knees. “Oh, come on, darling, try and be positive. This is the ultimate milestone! We’re handing you the keys to the kingdom.”

  “Nobody’s asked me what I want!”

  “I thought you’d be over the moon.” My dad gaped at me like I’d told him learning was wrong. “You’re at that perfect age, my dear, where your life’s not yet affected by what you discard. When I was eighteen, I had plans to be a teacher, a writer—gosh, even a university professor with a doctorate—a guy who might really make a diff—”

  “HP will wait for you, you know.” Mom got up suddenly from the couch, and her puzzle book clattered to the floor.

  “This is about HP?” asked Dad.