The thick evening heat has my mind wandering back to this summer and the first time Grace and I kissed. It was a Movie on the Green night downtown, where they show amovie on a projector outside city hall. Grace’s family was going, and I told her I’d meet her there after work.
When I showed up, she was waiting for me at the fountain that sits in the center of Eulogy’s only roundabout. Across the street, families were spread out on picnic blankets, watchingThe Goonies.
We’d held hands the night before, but I couldn’t decide if it was supposed to mean anything. I’d been racking my brain all day, to the point where Hattie could barely tolerate how distracted Grace had me.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said as she popped up from the edge of the fountain.
She wore a short white dress and mint-green sandals, and she smelled like a perfume of salt water, sunscreen, and bug spray.
As we headed in the opposite direction of the movie, she looped her arm through mine. We walked by darkened shop windows and rows of trees strung with twinkly lights.
She made the first move when she pulled me down a dark alley and kissed my bare shoulder. My eyes searched for hers in the dark. My hand slipped down her arm to intertwine with her fingers, and I kissed her on the lips. She kissed me back in the most ferocious way. For a moment, I was too shocked to even move, but soon our bodies were pressed up against the back door of one of the shops.
“I think Adam’s family lives out this way,” Freddie says, pulling me back into the present.
Saul parks in front of a huge white house with a tall wrought-iron fence lining the perimeter of the property.
“What is this place?” asks Ruth.
“A friend of a friend’s place,” says Saul. “They let me come here and swim whenever I want.”
Hattie’s lips twist into a pout. “Well, then why is this the first time the rest of us have been here?”
“A boy’s gotta keep a secret or two up his sleeve, okay?” Saul says.
We follow him up the driveway, and he squeezes through a gap in the fence, and I follow behind him. “You’re sure we can be here?” I whisper to Saul.
He winks at me once and presses a finger to his lips. I should stop him. I should stop all of us, but my shirt is drenched with sweat, and there’s obviously no one home. It’s not like we’re breaking into the actual house or anything.
“Yeah,” says Hattie, pointing to her belly while she eyes the fence. “Not gonna happen.”
Saul and I share a look, and I know what he’s about to suggest is completely moronic, but I don’t have any other ideas. “What can’t go through,” he says, “must go over.”
Hattie shrugs and turns to Freddie and Ruthie. “Y’all gotta hoist me up.”
Ruthie holds her hands out for Hattie’s foot but shakes her head. “This is the picture of maturity. Helping our pregnant friend jump a fence. Maybe I should put this on my med school applications.”
“Hey,” says Hattie. “If I fall, at least you can be the first responder.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?” Ruth asks.
Freddie grunts a little as he pushes Hattie over the other side, and thankfully Saul and I are both tall enough that she doesn’t have a long way to go without a safety net below her.
Once she’s safely over, Ruthie squeezes through the fence.
“You’re sure we’re allowed to be here?” asks Freddie with one foot still on the other side of the fence.
“Positive,” calls Saul as he skips up the driveway and around the corner with Ruth and Hattie close behind. Normally Ruth wouldn’t be down for something like this, but if there’s anyone she trusts, it’s Saul. Even if deep down sometimes her intuition says she shouldn’t.
Saul always knows someone who knows someone, so it’s no surprise that he knew about this pool. He’s resourceful, and I don’t know if he was always that way or if it developed out of necessity.
Freddie hesitates, and I hold out my hand. “Come on,” I tell him, swallowing my guilt. “Trust me.”
In the backyard, Saul rustles around in the bushes for a minute, looking for the pool lights.
While it’s still dark, I shimmy out of my shorts and Boucher’s T-shirt and jump into the pool in my pineapple underwear and purple-and-pink-polka-dot bra.
“Found ’em!” Saul calls, illuminating the backyard.
