His jaw snaps shut. “Fine, understood.”
Huck’s Drive-In used to be called Lost Lane Drive-In, before it shut down back in the early nineties. Mom would tell stories about watching films likeThe OutsidersandThe Princess Bride, but I think she spent more time in the back seat of local boys’ cars than actually watching films.
Now, every summer, Huck Sanchez sets up his dad’s projector and plays old black-and-white films that I’m sure nearly everyone at Cutwater High has never heard of. But just like Mom, they only come to drink and make out and do whatever they want without a single adult in sight. All of this I’ve been told by Archer—since I’ve never actually seen one of Huck’s films. Until tonight.
Moonlight shivers against the trees, laying its pale weight over everything, and we pass a small building—a ticket booth, the rectangular window shattered, graffiti marring the exterior walls. And beyond it, a larger building with a wooden deck built onto the front, the railing now sagging and broken. The sign above readsCONCESSIONS.A place where you could once buy soda in paper cups, boxed candy, and buttered popcorn. But now the whole place is abandoned, gone back to the forest and the kids who’ve broken in over the years.
Ahead of us, a half-moon-shaped field fans out around a wooden theater screen, and a sea of Cutwater High students fill the overgrown grass. Some have parked their cars facing the screen and now sit reclined on hoods or perched on roofs, while others are strewn across beach blankets and towels, faces to the sky, smoking, drinking beers, kissing beneath the stars, while they wait for the film to start playing on the massive screen.
Only a few yards away my eyes find Clementine Morris—shy, quiet Clementine—seated on the hood of Tobias Huaman’s silver Audi. I squint, certain I’m wrong, but her head is resting on Tobias’s shoulder while he plays with her long, unruly hair, coiling it through his fingers like he is completely and deliriously lovestruck. I recall the fight that happened in the hall at school, Tobias and Mac facing off, while Clementine stood nearby, lips curled secretively. Now I’m starting to understand…. Clementine must have possessed a tulip, concealed out of sight, and the tiny bloodred bloom ensnared the attention ofbothTobias and Mac.
And tonight she has found herself in the arms of Tobias.
But that’s not the only peculiarity. Two other boys stand nearby, their arms crossed, as if waiting for their chance to confess their love to Clementine as soon as Tobias looks the other way. I wonder how many tulip petals she has hidden in her pockets, in the folds of her skirt. Maybe she’s even been bathing in them, letting the perfume soak her skin.
Several cars away, Tobias’s girlfriend—or likely ex-girlfriendnow—Olive Montagu, leans against the tailgate of a black truck, three boys gathered around her, which isn’t that unusual for Olive. Except when another girl approaches—Titha—and the boys snap their eyes to her as if suddenly confused as to who they love more: which girl has more stolen tulips stashed in her pockets. Two of the boys stagger after Titha, their eyes like pools of desire, a pathetic slant cut across their mouths as they call after her, begging her to let them hold her hand.
As my eyes sway over the crowd, I find more evidence of the same awful affliction. At the border of trees, two girls are tugging on the arms of a boy who looks like Dale Dawson, and they shriek at each other, shouting for the other to let go, but Dale just grins. He must have a tulip hidden somewhere, or maybe he swallowed it like several others did on the lawn outside of school.
They’re falling in love with one another, desperate and unnatural.
And suddenly I’m reminded why this was a bad idea.
Too many people fill the lawn, and when they notice us, they’ll clamor toward the Goode twins, begging for more tulips.Pleading.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I mutter to Archer.
But he claps me on the shoulder. “Let’s go stir up some mischief,” he answers, and he starts toward the crowd.
“Archer!” I bark.
He turns back, raising an eyebrow at me. “I’m going to find Willa. You coming or not?”
My feet shift in the overgrown grass, and I clench my jaw, wishing I’d never come in the first place. Archer might love the attention, but I never have. This was a terrible idea.
I shake my head, and he sighs. “Fine. I’ll see you at home.”
He turns away, and I watch my brother weave through the crowd as people lift their eyes in his direction, whisper words to one another, a few even standing up to follow after him. Archer Goode will indeed stir up mischief tonight. But I want no part of it.
Before anyone can recognize me, I tip my chin to the ground and start back up the dirt road. Away from the theater screen.
When a voice behind me says, “Did you find your thief?”
I stop, taking in a breath. I should keep going, not look back, get away from here before more people spot me. But I risk a glance over my shoulder, and my eyes find the deep green of his.
He’s standing beside the ticket booth, one shoulder leaning against the wood clapboards, like a boy from one of his books, from one of Huck’s films, not a boy from the real world. Certainly not from Cutwater.
My throat struggles to find its footing. “What?”
“Your thief,” he repeats. “Did you find out who it was?”
“Not yet.”
“So I’m still a suspect?” His tone is light, but his features are cold, stiff, giving nothing away. He’s wearing the same gray sweatshirt from two days ago, but my eyes trip over the outline of his shoulders, his arms, his cheekbones, instilling them into my memory this time. Determined not to forget. And out of some dangerous reflex, I step toward him, a gravity I can’t explain.
“Everyone’s a suspect,” I answer, surprised at the playful tone of my voice.
His upper lip twitches, nearly becomes a smile. But never completely forms. “I’ll have to be careful, then. Until I can clear my name.”
