I practically spit out my slush. “Oh God, no. Yeah, definitely not.”
Freddie waggles his eyebrows. “Well, if you guys ever need my scientific opinion...”
“Oh, come on now. Seriously? Could you be any more of a bro?”
He looks sheepish. “Yeah, that was pretty bad, huh?”
“Worse than bad.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry! That was gross. So, anyway, you and Ruth? Nothing there?”
I squint at him for a moment, trying to decide if I’m going to let him get away with that so easily, and decide to count it as strike one. “Right,” I say. “Yeah, it would’vebeen hard to not wonder, okay? The only two gay girls in one small town.” I sigh. “But that would’ve been too convenient. Except we did decide that if we’re single and really old, like fifty probably, then we’ll get married and move to Vermont.”
He shakes his head, laughing. “Why Vermont?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Ruth says she heard it was a really gay place, but for, like, gay old people.”
“Like Florida? But gay?”
I choke on a piece of popcorn. “Oh my God! Yes!”
After we’ve both caught our breath, he asks, “So why don’t you and Grace make plans to go to the same university?”
“Yeah right.”
“What? Viv has partial swim scholarships at LSU and Florida State, but she’s choosing LSU because that’s where I’m going.”
“You honestly think I’m going to college?” I’m glad it’s too dark for him to really see me. I might never have had big plans of college, but I still feel like I’m mourning whatever the future might have held before Hattie got knocked up.
“Come on,” he says. “Don’t be another one of those small-town stereotypes.”
I can’t stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Speak for yourself, Mr. College Fund.”
“Don’t use money as an excuse, okay? There are grants. And loans even. People figure it out.”
“Yeah, people who don’t live in trailer parks. People who don’t work two jobs through high school. All those people havetimeto figure it out.” I should feel bad, but I don’t. I’ve been getting the college lecture from random strangers for a long time now. It’s almost as common asYou’re so tall! You must play basketball!
He’s silent for a minute. “I’m sorry,” he says, apologizing for, like, the fifteenth time today.
I shake my head. With all the differences between us, I almost can’t believe that we were once inseparable for two months every summer. “No, I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.” Like Grace and how she’s kidnapped my heart and taken it north up the Mississippi River and Hattie and her belly carrying my niece. Or nephew. And how temporary Tyler is and how much space he’s eating up in our already too small trailer and how Dad’s going to work himself to death, which means at the end of the day, I’m the only hope she’s got. So my escape fund? It will probably end up becoming a diapers and baby formula fund.
Despite all that, we talk for the rest of the movie, and I’m so thankful to have this empty theater to ourselves. I finish my slush and when Freddie doesn’t want the rest of his, I finish that too. We stay until the credits are through. CarrieAnn hovers at the door, waiting for us to clear out so she can clean the theater. As we leave, I give her a quick hug and tell her good luck with school this year. I hope she finds her person.
Outside, the rain has passed, so we ride home with the top down on the Jeep. It’s a day that feels like good-bye.It’s not high school that I’ll miss. It’s my summer breaks. The two months of freedom that almost make me feel like a tourist in my own town. Next summer won’t be any kind of break at all. It’ll be life, and the kind of life I’ve got ahead of me doesn’t include vacation time.
SEPTEMBER
EIGHT
“You should come to the Y with me and Gram,” says Freddie.
I shake my head. “For what?”
We sit on the curb of the alleyway behind Scrub-a-Dub Car Wash, sharing a half-cherry, half-lemon shaved ice while Freddie’s on break. He landed a job spinning signs on the corner here. I don’t think he really needs the job, but without Viv around, I think he has some time to fill. And his newfound friend, Adam Garza, whose family owns not one but two local Scrub-a-Dub locations and two more in Jackson, helped him land the gig.
Adam rolls back and forth in front of us on his electric-blue skateboard covered in band stickers, popping up and down from the curb every few moments. He’s quiet, but also the kind of guy who says the funniest things under his breath during class. And he’s cute, too. He’s half Mexican and half Honduran and he has longish brown hair that is always falling into his eyes. I guess I imagined Freddie seamlessly fitting into the fold of jocks or something, but itmakes sense he’d gravitate toward the kind of guy who has great hair and is too cool for this town, making him uncool in comparison.
Over the course of a few weeks, Freddie has slipped into my life like he was always meant to be there. We ride our bikes to and from school as far as we can until our roads diverge. Sometimes Adam joins us on his skateboard or Ruth hops on the back of my bike. But I always come over for breakfast a few times a week. We watch movies at each other’s houses on the weekend and spend whatever free afternoons we have on the beach with Ruthie, Saul, and Hattie.
